Community Holistic Circle Healing

Our Position on Incarceration

Name: Community Holistic Circle Healing
Address: #78 Main Road, Wanipigow, Manitoba, R0E 2E0
Price range: unknown

C.H.C.H.'s position on the use of incarceration, and its relationship to an individual's healing process, has changed over time.

In our initial efforts to break the vicious cycle of abuse that was occurring in our community, we took the position that we needed to promote the use of incarceration in cases which were defined as "too serious". After some time, however, we came to the conclusion that this position was adding significantly to the difficulty of what was already complex casework.

As we worked through the casework difficulties that arose out of this position, we came to realize two things: (1) that as we both shared our own stories of victimization and learned from our experiences in assisting in others dealing with the pain of their victimization, it became very difficult to define "too serious". The quantity or quality of pain felt by the victim, the family/ies, and the community did not seem to be directly connected to any specific act or acts of victimization. Attempts, for example, by the courts- and to a certain degree by ourselves- to define a particular victimization as "too serious" and another as "not too serious" (eg. "only" fondling vs. actual intercourse, victim is daughter vs. victim is nephew, on victim vs. four victims) were gross over- simplifications and certainly not valid from an experiential point of view, and (2) that promoting incarceration was based in, and motivated by, a mixture of feelings of anger, revenge, vulnerability, guilt, and shame on our part and around our personal victimization issues, rather than in healthy resolution of the victimization we were attempting to address.

Thus, our position on the use of incarceration has shifted. At the same time, we understand how the legal system continues to use the view incarceration- as punishment and deterrence for the victimizers (offenders) and protection and safety for the victim(s) and community. What the legal system sometimes seems not to understand is the complexity of the issues involved in breaking the cycle of abuse that exists in our community.

We believe that approximately seventy-five percent of the member of our community are victims of sexual abuse. We believe that approximately thirty- five percent of the members of our community are victimization. We live with it, and its effects, very day of our lives.

The legal system promotes the belief that using incarceration, as a punishment and a deterrence, will break this cycle and make our community a safe place. As we see it, this simply has not- and will not- work.

Our tradition, our culture, speaks clearly about the concepts of judgment and punishment. They belong to the Creator. They are not ours. They are, therefore, not to be used in the way that we relate to each other. People who offend against another (victimizers) are to be viewed and related to as people who are out of balance- with themselves, their family, their community, and their Creator. A return to balance can best be accomplished through a process of accountability that included support from the community through teaching and healing. The use of judgment and punishment actually works against the healing process. An already unbalanced person is moved further out of balance.

The legal system's use of incarceration under the guise of specific and general deterrence also seems, to us, to be ineffective in breaking the cycle of violence. Victimization has become so much a part of who we are, as a people and as a community, that the threat of jail simply does not deter offending behaviour. What the threat of incarceration does do is keep people from coming forward and taking responsibility for the hurt they are causing. It reinforces the silence and therefore promotes, rather than breaks, the cycles of violence that exists. In reality, rather the making the community a safer place, the threat of jail places the community more at risk.

To make matters worse, community members who are charged with violent acts have, historically, remained in the community, often for months, awaiting a court hearing. They are presumed by the legal system to be innocent until proven guilty. In this period of time there is no accountability to the community and, unknown to the outside, re-offending often occurs.

If/when people are incarcerated they do not seem to receive any help while away from the community. They return from jail not only further out of balance but are told by the probation and parole workers- and therefore, to certain degree, believe- that they have "paid for their crime'. As a result the community is more at risk than before the people were put in jail.

In order to break the cycle, we believe that the victimizer accountability must be to, and support must come from, those most affected by the victimization- the victim, the family/ies, the community. Removal of the victimizer from those who must, and are best able to, hold him/her accountable, and to offer him/her support, adds complexity to already existing dynastic of denial, guilt, and shame. The healing process of all parties is therefore at best delayed, and most often actually deterred.

The legal system, based on principles of punishment and deterrence, as we see it, simply is not working. We cannot understand how the legal system doesn't see this. Whatever change that occurs when people return to our community from jail seems to be for the worse. Incarceration may be effective in the larger society, but it is not working in our community. Adding to our frustration is the sense that the legal system has come to take over, from our community, the role it once played in handling "justice" matters.

In attempt to re-claim this role, the community has established, through C.H.C.H., what we see as a conjunction relationship with the legal system. In this relationship, we do not see ourselves as "being on the side of" either Crown or Defence, The people they represent are both members of our community. The pain of both victim and victimizer is felt by all of us.

In this relationship, we are attempting to promote a process that we believe is more consistent with how justice matters would have handled traditionally in our community. Rather than focusing on a specific incident as the legal system does as present, we believe a more holistic focus is required in order to restore balance to all parties of the victimization. The victimizer must be addressed in all his or hers dimensions- physical, mental, emotional, spiritual- and within the context of all of his or hers past, present, and future relationships with family, community, and Creator. The legal system's adversarial approach does not allow this to happen.

The adversarial approach places victim against victimizers. Defence lawyers advise their clients to say nothing and acknowledge no responsibility. Not following this advice "weakens" the case. Because they are feeling vulnerable, and because they have been told historically that they should trust lawyers to protect their interests, victimizers find it very difficult to disregard this advice. At the same time, Crown Attorneys, to make their case, put the victims- often children- on the witness stand and expect them to participate in a process that in many ways, as we see it, further victimizes them. The court room and process simply is not safe place for the victim to address the victimization- nor is it a safe place for the victimizer to come forward and take responsibility for what has happened.

The adversarial approach also places the victimizer again his or her community. As we see it, this goes against the very essence of the healing process. For us, healing (breaking the cycle) is based in (1) the victimizer taking full responsibility for his/her actions, (2) the victim understanding and integrating this into day-to-day living, and (3) the COMMUNITY being able to support, assist, and/ or hold accountable all the parties of the victimization. Until this can happen, and as long as incarceration is seen as the solution, the community will not be a safe place.

We do not see our present position on incarceration as either "an easy way" for the victimizer, or as the victimizer "getting away". We see it rather as establishing a very clear line of accountability between the victimizer and his or her community. What follows from that line is a process that we believe is not only much more difficult for the victimizer, but also much more likely to heal the victimization, than doing time in jail could ever be.

Our children and the community can no longer afford the price the legal system is extracting in its attempts to provide justice in our community. We can no longer talk about punishment and deterrence. We have to talk about BREAKING THE CYCLE - NOW! We see this as clearly the responsibility of the community rather than of the legal system.

Reclaiming its role administrating justice allows the community to move beyond incomplete and short-term solutions to the long term restoration of balance. Not allowing the transfers of responsibility for justice, including prevention and rehabilitation, back to the community not only robs it of strength but threatens its ability to survive.

The teachings of the Medicine Wheel show is the direction in which we need to go. We have begun to break the cycle of violence and abuse in our community, but the issue of a safe place (1) to disclose, and (2) to take responsibility is in a delicate balance. Incarceration is only appropriate if a victimizer is unwilling or unable to take responsibility for his or her behaviour, and/or the community cannot hold accountable and offer support to all the parties of the victimization. Without these, the healing process cannot begin. Incarceration, however, will never be an ingredient in the HEALING of ourselves or our community.

Community Holistic Circle Healing

Our Position on Incarceration

C.H.C.H.'s position on the use of incarceration, and its relationship to an individual's healing process, has changed over time.

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