Abstract:
This paper traces the history of the bush justice system in rural Alaska, describes the relationship between traditional Alaska Native dispute resolution mechanisms and the state criminal justice system, and analyzes bush justice research between 1970 and 1981 and its effects on state agency policies and changes in the rural justice system. Innovations by researchers were well-received by villagers and field-level professionals, but not by agency policymakers. Hence, most reforms made in the 1970s had vanished by the early 1980s. The author concludes that further reforms will be ineffective unless Alaska Natives are drawn into the decisionmaking process as co-equal players negotiating on legal process from positions of power.
Description:
A revised version of this paper, at shorter length, was published in the "proceedings" volume for this conference:
Conn, Stephen. (1985). "Alaskan Bush Justice: Legal Centralism Confronts Social Science Research and Village Alaska." In Antony Allott & Gordon R. Woodman (eds.), People's Law and State Law: The Bellagio Papers, pp. 299–320. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris Publications (http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9752).
