NCJ Number
160615
Editor(s)
K M Hazlehurst
Date Published
1995
Length
308 pages
Annotation
Ten papers examine various issues in the post-colonial structures of justice for indigenous people in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Abstract
Following an overview of justice issues for indigenous people in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, a paper traces the fundamental role of the Hudson's Bay Company in shaping the colonial relationship in the Canadian west from 1670 to 1870. This study shows that indigenous people were not simply passive recipients of the imposed law, but were societies with strong and ancient traditions of law-making that resisted and adapted to these intrusions. The second paper provides further evidence of the manner in which indigenous justice disappeared in Canada over the 19th and 20th centuries. A third paper considers the role and significance of treaties in the ongoing relationship between indigenous people and the colonial powers. Another paper examines the implications of a court case in Australia, Mabo v. Queensland, which for the first time recognized the validity of indigenous laws, in this case the recognition of indigenous land ownership. Through a presentation of the findings of a longitudinal crime and justice study first initiated in the 13 communities of the Baffin Region of Canada in 1990, another paper provides a profile of the colonial legacy and contemporary dilemmas associated with the delivery of justice services to indigenous Canadians. Other papers consider dimensions of aboriginal overrepresentation in Canadian correctional institutions and implications for crime prevention, aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia, a comparison of the criminal justice system responses to indigenous peoples in Australia and Canada, and the reassertion of Maori legal processes in New Zealand. 2 figures, 13 tables, chapter notes and references, and a subject index