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"The folly of native sentencing circles"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this interesting commentary from Canada's National Post. Here is a provocative excerpt: One often hears sentencing circles spoken of as if they were an ancient feature of aboriginal civilization. In fact, the term was popularized only in the 1990s, when academics and government officials began blaming high rates of native criminality on a "white" criminal justice system that alienates natives with its focus on Western abstractions such as "justice," "guilt" and "punishment." In 1996, the federal government began funding sentencing circles as part of its newly announced Aboriginal Justice Strategy, and amended the sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code to provide special treatment for aboriginals -- later justified by the Supreme Court of Canada on the dubious basis that "many traditional aboriginal conceptions of sentence emphasize the notions of community-based sanction and restorative justice...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 20, 2009 (boomark / email).