Returning to the Teachings: Exploring Aboriginal Justice

David Mardiros is an anthropological consultant in Kars, Ontario.

Issues surrounding the efficacy and effectiveness of a “justice
system” based on the British common law as it is applied in Native
communities have long been a source of comment and debate among legal
practitioners, criminologists, and other specialists in the field of
criminal justice. The use of “sentencing circles” has received
considerable attention of late in the popular press and has also been
the subject of academic comment. This book is unusual in that it
attempts to analyze justice from Native perspectives.

The author, a Crown prosecutor who has worked for a number of years in
aboriginal communities in northwestern Ontario, was taught to view
criminal-justice issues from perspectives other than the Western
European rationalist model that forms the basis of Euro-Canadian legal
education. In this well-documented book, he offers a number of
suggestions as to how indigenous approaches to conflict resolution can
be incorporated into the existing criminal-justice system.

A number of the issues discussed have wider implications—that is,
implications for areas beyond criminal justice. In particular, the
author’s focus on the team approach to developing solutions, coupled
with his demonstration of the close connections between community
development and alternative dispute-resolution systems based on
indigenous teachings, makes this book useful reading for anyone
interested in aboriginal community issues.