Native Americans and Justice
Dr. Joseph H. Hall, IV

Abstract
Native Americans, as a group, are not a monolithic block of homogeneous cultures, but distinct sovereign domestic nations, which all have unique systems of criminal justice, to include corrections, adjudication and enforcement functions. Through the history of Native American contact with dominant White governments, unique systems of articulation have developed between the two sides. Because of the often chaotic nature of the contact between the two systems as they met along the fluid frontier through time, the policies and practices that evolved to govern the relationship of one to the other were often developed piecemeal, and tended to be crude and unsophisticated. Moving forward in the 21st century, it is hoped that more of the elegant and principled Native systems of justice are called upon to model the form and direction that criminal justice policy will take.

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