Western Views On Criminal Justice

Conversely, the First Nations view of the world and more specifically the criminal justice system is vastly different. First Nations view of the world is one of community, relationships, equality, and holistic views of harmony and balance (Monchalin, 2016). Professor Leroy Little Bear stated, “[i]f the whole is maintained, then beauty, harmony, and balance result” (Monchalin, 2016, p.40). This idea of complete harmony and balance was not only for each and every human, but in every aspect in life, such as the environment and animals. With these views and values the power would not be held at the top, as well as the competitiveness and individualized mentality would not be present. The relationships and cooperation values structured First Nations to view the idea of justice in a much different way. Their goals were not punishment, crime control or restoration, but for healing on all levels,
A major position in the western views is crime control at all costs. What this insinuates is, having strong presence of officers, punishment in the form of incarceration, and deterrence from committing the crimes again (Monchalin, 2016). Justice has been “served” when someone who has committed a crime was convicted and is fulfilling the punishment, generally in the form of prison sentence. Western views that removing this individual from society it has further protected the victims from a reoccurrence, thus giving them “healing”. Other points, such as mandatory minimums and conditional sentences are structures put into place to display harsh views crimes, ignoring the context in which the crime occurred. Monchalin (2016) describes the current justice system as adversarial, which in essence means they are combating crime. This idea shows the force and aggression used by the Westernized views of justice, where they feel that it is a “war on