American Indian Program Offers Justice for All Story-Date: 01:19 p.m. PST Sunday , October 12, 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------ American Indian Program Offers Justice for All By K. Marie Porterfield, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News RAPID CITY, S.D.--Oct. 13--American Indians are not strangers to crime victimization. Between 1994 and 1996, of the cases the F.B.I. opened in Indian country, 48 percent involved violent crime. "Victims of both major and minor crimes have doubts about themselves, about their relationships to other people and the meaning of life," said Howard Zehr, a professor of Sociology and Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. Last week he spoke to Oglala Lakota College students, criminal justice workers and staff members of American Indian programs including Anpetu Luta Otipi and the Brown Stone Woman. His topic was restorative justice -- justice that seeks to heal both victim and offender rather than ignore one and punish the other. Currently there are 300 such programs in the United States. First Nations in Canada are using this strategy as well as the Maoris of New Zealand. "What we do is heart-based," Mr. Zehr said. "Indigenous justice focuses on healing. That is what we are trying to do." He told the audience that victims need a sense of emotional and physical safety to heal. They need to tell their stories and they need answers about why they were victimized. Restorative justice programs, based on reconciliation, help victims to heal and offenders from repeating their crimes, he said. "Punishing people stigmatizes them by labeling them as ex-cons," he said. "The shame they feel causes them to join with others and turn the `bad' label into something to be praised for." According to Mr. Zehr, not only is the prison system designed to shame, it actually helps offenders avoid the consequences of their negative behavior and continue to deny responsibility for what they have done. Instead of building more jails, the restorative justice movement involves the community in solving problems by bringing together victims, offenders, family members and neighbors to look at the harm that has been done, help the offender accept accountability and decide what obligations he or she has toward the victim. "People who have tried restorative justice are highly satisfied with it," he said. "Victims are two times more likely to report satisfaction than those who go through the courts. Eighty to 90 percent of the victims and offenders who use it say it was a positive experience." American Indian members of the audience were generally positive about the concept, but some wondered if it would work in Rapid City. "If we tried to get the judges and probation officers to do something like this, I think they would circle their wagons pretty fast," said Ida Fast Wolf, an OLC student taking a conflict resolution class. Deb Claymore, a consultant said she believed restorative justice could work, but that groundwork would need to be laid for it to be accepted. "It's a great idea," said Simona McDonald, a volunteer with the court systems. "It's more in touch with feelings than what we have now. When he talked about shame, I was reminded of some of the things John Bradshaw has said about recovery." ----- Visit Indian Country Today on the World Wide Web at http://www.indiancountry.com/ ----- (c) 1997, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News. ------------------------------------------------------------