The Navajo Nation courts get close to 28,000 criminal cases each year. The largest categories of crime are assaults and batteries (most often among family members), other crimes against family members, driving while intoxicated and other alcohol-related crimes, and disorderly conduct. The judges have few sentencing options because there is jail space for only 220 people at any one time. Instead, the Navajo justice system is turning to peacemakers.

In Navajo peacemaking, offenders are brought in to a session involving the person accused of an offense and the person who suffered from it, along with the "tag-along" victims of the crime, namely the relatives of the accused and of the person hurt by the accused. I am hesitant to use the term "victim," because we know that in many situations such as fighting within the family, the roles and accompanying labels are not that simple.

The sessions are moderated by a community leader called a "peacemaker." The action is put on the table. People talk about what happened and how they feel about it.

A harmful act is "something that gets in the way of living your life," and Navajo peacemaking deals with such an act by identifying it, talking about it, and devising a plan to deal with it.

One factor especially leaps out that is part of Navajo traditional knowledge.  Navajos know post-traumatic stress disorder as nayee or "monster." What is the essence of the cycle of violence, in which children who are abused or neglected become offenders themselves? Nayee. Antisocial personality disorder? Nayee.

Peacemaking is based upon family therapy. As Philmer Bluehouse and James Zion of the Navajo peace-maker system have said, peacemaking is a ceremony that uses traditional practices now being "discovered" by the Western world to kill or weaken "monsters." The act is the focus of peacemaking; you get it out, put it on the table, and look at it. The process is much the same as the ceremonial practice of turning abstract monsters into something tangible and concrete before you, and then dealing with them.

Traditional Navajo law requires families to take responsibility for their family members. It is not a coerced responsibility, but one that comes from the respect and love people should have for their relatives. In peacemaking, the relatives of those who hurt someone else come forward to help with restitution and to watch over their relative to be sure he or she does not offend again.

Rewriting the script

Donald Nathanson, a psychiatrist in the restorative justice movement, tells us that the key to violence control is "affect modulation." He says that as we grow from childhood, we learn scripts - ways of responding to things that frighten or anger us. These scripts follow what he calls the "compass of shame," relying on withdrawal, avoidance, "hurting self," "hurting other," or some combination of these. If the script is an intense one, we see withdrawal into alcohol, avoidance by becoming a street person, literally hurting others, and hurting self in drug-dependence, suicide, and other self-destructive behaviors.

Those kinds of scripts are familiar. Harmful scripts cannot be addressed using suppression tactics. They are best addressed by showing people the harmful effects of their conduct and the fact there are better ways of dealing with the things that frighten or challenge them. Navajo peacemaking speaks precisely to "the compass of shame" by subduing harmful scripts and teaching people how to avoid hurting others.

In Navajo thinking, thought is the inner form of speech, and speech is the inner form of action. It's a simple enough concept - as you think, so will you speak, and as you speak, so will you do.

If your action is fueled by alcohol or drugs, it is going to hurt others. What does someone who hurts others think or reflect about that?  In the Western system, there is nothing other than ineffective punishment to compel someone who hurts another to reflect on what he or she has done. There is nothing to make people face their actions and their effects. There is little to involve those who get hurt, including the tagalong victims - spouses, children, and relatives.

We say you should start your day with prayer and by seeking inspiration, and take that inner thinking and turn it into a plan. The plan then becomes action, following on what you thought, planned, and spoke. At the end of the day, you reflect on what you did so that you can do better tomorrow. That is the good way.

A symbol of healed relations

Some are surprised to learn that in traditional Navajo justice, restitution for a wrongdoing can be symbolic. It can be a piece of jewelry or some other item of little nominal value but great symbolic value.  Horses are prized highly by Navajos, and they are a form of restitution for serious sexual insults.

How does symbolic restitution help someone who is hurt? Navajos are more interested in what the restitution means than its value. Does the item used for restitution say, "I'm sorry"? Does it say, "I honor your worth and dignity with this thing that we Navajos prize"? Does it say, "Let this be a symbol and something tangible to remind us that we have talked this hurt out and entered into good relations with each other"?

We know that peacemaking works. It has proven successful in problem areas such as driving while intoxicated, delinquency, family violence, and alcohol-related crime. It allows families to be involved in helping their relatives (whether they were the ones doing the hurting or the ones who got hurt), and it helps everyone look at the monster of the action and its effects.

Can Navajo peacemaking prevent harm in addition to dealing with crimes after they happen? About 25 percent of all Navajos are children nine and under - a huge youth cohort. If we know that a child who is abused or neglected is more likely to enter the cycle of violence, doesn't it make sense to put resources in place for children? Peacemaking supplements child protection programs to help both children and parents.  Philmer Bluehouse left the Judicial Branch recently to take Navajo peacemaking into the schools, where he can reach out to the children who are hurt.