Building Community Partnerships:
Community Peacemaking Circles

Part I: Introduction to Circles

This Circle we’re trying to do in my community is not just about offenders and victims - not just about crime - but about all of us working together - learning about each other - learning how to help each other - how to grow - heal together - gives me hope you know to think now my energy need not be taken up in anger - but in learning about how to live together and respect our differences.

(Harold Gatensby, Yukon College, May 1, 1995)

This paper concentrates on the mechanics, the nuts and bolts, of developing partnerships between communities and formal justice agencies to build shared responsibility for handling crime problems through Community Peacemaking Circles.^[1] The primary purpose of this paper is to describe the process for initiating, operating and maintaining the community circle process.

Universal blueprints for achieving the maximum potential of a Circle process are neither possible nor useful. Each community must struggle to evolve a process unique to its circumstances; one they build, own and operate. What is offered in this paper is not the blueprint, but an illumination of the road traveled in the Yukon. This illumination may help others avoid the deepest potholes that hindered the experience of several Yukon communities in their journey to re-engage families and communities in dealing with conflict and crime.

Missing from this paper are significant discussions about the emotional and spiritual dynamics of the Circle process. These elements, more so than Circle procedures, mark the fundamental differences between Circles and adversarial justice processes centered on pinpointing guilt and punishing.

Appreciating the differences between Circle and Court processes might be easier to grasp by first understanding the spiritual and emotional context of Circles. Certainly, the emotional and spiritual dynamics of the Circle are much more important. These elements are the foundation of the seemingly miraculous changes Circles precipitate in the lives of offenders, victims, their families, and communities – and in many of the professionals who have experienced the “spirituality” of Circles. So why is this paper focused on process?

I could hide behind the suggestion that, as one who has been fully trained, my first priority is to think my way through the steps before gaining a feel for the impact of each step. That explanation would be only partially true. I have focused on process first for several reasons. I believe it is essential for other non-Aboriginal professionals seeking to use some form of the Circle with Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal communities to appreciate, much better than I did, that the Circle process is much more than rearranging furniture. Much more preparation is required by all participants.

The most significant reason for setting out Circles procedures, before exploring their dynamics, has little to do with any professional perspective or strategic objectives. Simply stated, I’m not ready yet to do the “heart speaking” necessary to openly share my experiences of the Circle. I’m not capable of being fully subjective about my experience in a manner that violates the professional code of objective inquiry. Further, I have much to digest from my experiences, much to talk about with others concerning both my own and their experiences, and much to learn before I feel able to probe the powerful emotional and spiritual environment of the Circle. While a description of Circle procedures is the focus of this paper, and while “head speaking” is the intended dominant voice – some “heart speaking” could not be denied. Within these pages, some of the joy, excitement, and enthusiasm, as well as the frustration and disappointment, seep into the text. This is more of a warning than an apology to those expecting to find a professionally objective journey through the Circle procedures. If I could have, and hopefully soon I can, I’d let the heart and head both speak about the experience of the Circle.

This paper is written to share, not to instruct or impose. I hope it raises more questions, than it provides answers. I hope it will provoke others to explore ways to use conflict to build healthy connections within families, and among all members of their communities. I have still more questions than answers. I am still exploring – often missing the old comforts of certainty the established system offers – often lost – often discouraged – often wanting to go home to the known realities of highly honed roles, power and security that come with the robe and the bench.

While there is much work to do in making the overdue changes in our formal justice processes, I don’t question that these processes are essential in responding to conflict and crime in our communities. Yet neither do I question the need to adapt formal justice processes to the needs of all communities, and to develop autonomous processes within communities. My search for ways to adapt existing formal processes and to build self-reliant processes in communities is driven by experiencing both the unintended damage our formal justice system can impose and the miraculous healing, reconnecting and rebuilding of people and relationships that can happen in processes that empower people in a “good way” to develop their own solutions to conflict in their lives.

The challenge is not to replace mainstream justice processes but to discover what they are best suited to do, how they can effectively work in partnership with other processes, and what conflicts are better served outside the formal justice processes.

Circles: Their Part in Responding to Conflict

There are many methods for engaging communities and families in processing conflict. Many of these methods are necessary to support and complement Peacemaking Circles. The focus on the Circle in this paper ought not to suggest that the Circle is a necessary or exclusive method for restoring family and community responsibilities^[2] If nothing else, my experience with the Circle (as my experience with any process) has unequivocally demonstrated there is no single process or forum capable of accommodating all conflicts. To sustain healthy relationships within a family, a community, a nation or world, we must maintain a rich diversity of opportunities for purposeful, safe resolution of our differences.

Peacemaking Circles offer no new or miracle cures. They are but one means of empowering communities and people affected by crime to assume the difficult responsibilities of responding to the social and personal problems surrounding crime. Many crimes are ideally suited for mediation or diversion, which require more community and less formal justice system resources than Circles. Other crimes are better suited for the formal justice system, with minimal community involvement. No one system can ensure an effective response to the myriad circumstances surrounding crime and criminals.

In each community a range of responses to crime is necessary. At one end of the continuum, the formal adversarial justice system; at the other, the family, friends, and maybe a mediator or peacemaker negotiating a solution among all affected parties. Somewhere in the middle of this continuum lies a community Peacemaking Circle – a partnership between the community and government agencies.

The formal justice system has a place, an important place in our society, but so too do systems and values flowing from family and community. Currently, too much responsibility has been assumed by the formal justice system – too much taken away from families and communities – for maintaining harmony and for managing conflict. We must create a better balance between what the state should and can do, and what family and communities should and can do.

Community justice shifts responsibility from the state to communities, to families and to individuals for resolving conflict and, in so doing, reinforces families and communities as the cornerstones of our society.

Current practices, funding and attitudes within society, especially within government, cause an excessive reliance upon a state-provided formal justice system. Consequently, formal justice resources are frequently employed unnecessarily and more appropriate community alternatives are underemployed for both civil and criminal issues. Criminal issues come readily into the grasp of the formal justice system through the burgeoning numbers of police, often relative strangers to the community, who direct cases into the justice assembly line. Once into the process, cases rarely are returned to the community, and then only when someone within the formal system “approves”. Such an approval requires the existence of community alternatives, knowledge of community alternatives, and police or Crown confidence in these alternatives.

Emphasizing the differences between formal and community justice processes can overlook the crucial potential for these processes to complement and reinforce each other. There is much work for both processes, but community processes must be the front line, the primary response within communities to conflict and crime. The formal justice system must become what it was originally intended to be, a back-up to community and family processes for resolving conflict. To properly realign the functions of the family, community and the state, and to remove the monopoly the formal justice system has acquired over conflict, major changes are required, as follows.

• Significant changes in the culture structures, policies, attitudes, power and funding of state institutions are required to enable community processes to function effectively and, where necessary, to work in concert with the State.
• Significant investment is required in training professionals and community volunteers to work co-operatively, to understand and respect their different values and different processes.
• The quality, accessibility and extent of public information about what the justice system does and what it costs – in monetary and human terms – must be drastically improved for the public to effectively evaluate what formal justice systems and community-based alternatives offer, and what use each can serve.
• All of us must invest more time, take on more responsibility for the well-being of our families and communities. On so many levels, we can no longer afford to depend so extensively upon experts, and upon the state.

In a small, vital way, the struggles of communities to establish community Circle processes advance these changes.

Does the Circle “widen the net” of formal justice agencies? Many worry – and so they should – that community justice initiatives extend the reach of formal justice agencies, thereby increasing costs without adding any significant benefit. “Widening the net” is not by itself necessarily bad - if, in widening the net, people who need help, get help. Less than half of the crimes are reported or processed by existing justice services^[3]. That can leave many victims – many conflicts - without peaceful, purposeful resolution. The Circle process does reach crimes that would not otherwise be reported. Members of families in crisis have come forward to report crimes solely to get the help the Circle offers. For many reasons, they do not wish to be involved in the formal legal process. Others seeking a different means of resolving their disputes have used the community process. If a Circle process provides a different approach and a different result than a formal justice process, then “widening the net” constructively contributes to peacemaking within families and communities.

Equally vital is the ability of the Circle process to take cases out of the formal system. On many levels, in many cases, the Circle process affords the community an ability to replace state involvement. Community Circle processes are not about fitting communities into the justice system, but rather are about fitting the justice system into the community.

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• [1] Peacemaking Circles are often referred to as Sentencing Circles. However, sentencing is only one part of what happens in a Circle process. The peacemaking, healing focus of the Circle is not properly reflected by referring to the Circles as Sentencing Circles. The Circles run by local Keepers, whether they involve judges or not, are referred to in this paper as Peacemaking Circles. Circles run by judges in the court are referred to as Sentencing Circles. The different kinds of Circles are described at p. 12.
• [2] While this paper concentrates on the use of Circles for criminal cases, Circles have been, and can be, used for family, civil conflicts, for institutional conflicts, public issues, and conflicts in the workplace.
• [3] Evaluating Justice: Canadian Policies and Programs, Julian V. Roberts, Joe Hudson (eds.), Toronto: Thompson Education Pub., c1993 at p. 5. In England, studies suggest only 15 per cent of all crime is responded to. There is little reason to believe the figure for Canada is much different.

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