Overview

A decade ago, a landmark study by Indian law affairs specialist Rupert Ross suggested that alternative methods of crime prevention based on traditional aboriginal values would lower crime rates in native communities. since then, reform measures have backed away from increasing criminal charges, vigorous prosecutions, and jail terms. Unfortunately, such research failed t represent two groups greatly hurt by criminal violence: women abd children. The impetus for this book arose out of a 1995 Winnipeg study between the authors and 26 aboriginal women. The compelling accounts these women give of the domestic violence infusing their lives, first as children and later as wives and mothers, make it all clear that any plan to implement so-called ""diversionary"" reforms must first take into account this under-represented group. For survivors of domestic violence, jail terms for abusers allow time for healing,and the threat of criminal prosecution may quell violent outbreaks. Lax responses from an inconsistent criminal justice system frustrate aboriginal women and may imperil their lives. Using the tools of sociology and law, this work analyses how this endemic cycle of violence might have been constructed. with this analysis and the very voices and desires of the women involved, an effective combination of the dominant Canadian justice system and aboriginal systems becomes a real possibility.

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9780802042064

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Author Information

Brenda Comaskey is a research associate at RESOLVE (Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse) at the University of Manitoba. Anne McGillivray is a professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba.

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