| Navajos replace punishment with
Peacemaking ARIZONA -- In a bold experiment, which is actually a return to traditional ways, the Navajo Nation Council has changed their criminal code to eliminate jail time and fines for 79 offenses. It is now requiring the use of peacemakers in all criminal cases to insure justice, right relations and to protect the rights of victims. The new code is based on the traditional Navajo concept of nalyeeh, a word that refers to the process of confronting those who have hurt others with a demand that they talk things out. This is where the peacemaker comes in. The Navajo peacemaking session brings the accused and the victim face to face, along with those family members who wish to be present. The session is moderated by an official peacemaker, who is generally a respected community leader. Each party is given an opportunity to talk about what happened and how they feel about it. Whereas the Western penal system, which grew out of Christianity, is based on the concept of the punishment of evil, the Navajo system is based on the idea of the restoration of balance in the community. When a crime is committed, the balance of the community, the individuals involved and the Universe, is disturbed and must be reestablished. Their method of restoring the balance is to identifying it, discuss it and to involve all parties in developing a plan to deal with it. For example, the relatives of the accused might be asked to watch over their relative to be sure he does not reoffend, or the accused might be asked to give a symbolic object as part of the restitution process. Horses, for instance, are prized possessions of the Navajo people and they are a form of restitution for serious sexual insults. Such a symbol might mean anything from "I'm sorry" to "Let this be a symbol and something tangible to remind us that we have talked this hurt out and entered into good relations with each other." This experiment could prove to be an invaluable one. The Navajo Nation courts see 28,000 criminal cases every year, but have enough jail space for only 220 people at any one time. By returning to a traditional method of justice that concentrates on the effects of a crime rather than how to punish its perpetrator, the Navajos could be offering a lesson to the rest of America and the Western world. It is simply not viable to keep locking up a major part of the population, and peacemaking could be a way of reducing that prison population while letting the offenders see the effects of their crimes. Most importantly of all, perhaps, it puts the victim (or the person harmed by the crime) at the center of the justice process. Source: Institute for Social Inventions. From an article by The Honorable Robert Yazzie, entitled Navajo justice, in YES! A Journal of Positive Futures: www.yesmagazine.org. |
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Dec 2001 |
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