Alaskan Bush Justice: Legal Centralism Confronts Social Science Research and Village Alaska [1982 revision]

• Main Author: Conn, Stephen
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Justice Center, University of Alaska Anchorage 1982
• Subjects: Alaska Court System; Alaska history; Alaska Natives; bush justice; courts; justice research; legal pluralism; magistrates; rural justice; traditional law ways; village conciliation boards; village councils; north slope; Alaska
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9751

This revision was prepared for publication in the “proceedings” volume for the conference. The final version was published as: 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). The paper as originally presented includes discussions of corrections and law enforcement in the North Slope Borough that were excluded from this revision. The paper as originally presented can be found at: http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9750. 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. Research discussed in this paper funded by Law and Social Science Program, National Science Foundation; the Ford Foundation; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; Alaska State Court System; Law Enforcement Assistance Administration; and University of Alaska. The Environment for Research / What is the bush justice system in Alaska? / The Early Years of The Relationship / The Later Years / Impact on Council Justice in the 1970's / Village Efforts / Professional Perspectives / Magistrates as Guardians of Due Process / The Problem Board Experiment / The Court Experiment with Problem Boards / Paralegals / ...