NATIVES TRY 'BANISHMENT' TO FIGHT CRIME

Faced With Modern Ills Of Gangs And Drugs, Bands Turn To The Past For
An Antidote

EDMONTON, CALGARY -- Fed up with the drug running and gang violence
plaguing Samson Cree Nation, the Alberta band is turning to an
ancient practice to deal with modern day ills: banishment.

"It's not the Indian way for them to be doing the things they are
doing now, and it is the Indian way for us to ban them from the
community or from the collective," explained Mel Buffalo, a Samson
band director.

Samson is an oil-blessed reserve south of Edmonton with 6,340 members
who, once they turn 18, can cash in energy-related trust funds worth
tens of thousands of dollars. Most Samson members are under 30 and
live on the reserve, where the unemployment rate is almost 83 per
cent, substance-abuse problems are common and the crime rate is soaring.

"The existing system doesn't seem to work," Mr. Buffalo said in an
interview. "It seems like we keep on sending people away [to jail]
and they keep on coming back and reoffending."

Samson isn't the only native band turning to its past to find
solutions for present-day scourges. Despite the legal questions
surrounding the use of banishment -- the federal Indian Act, which
has been in effect since 1867, does not allow it as a penalty --
bands are increasingly readopting it, whether for temporary
banishment or permanent exile.

Before Europeans arrived in North America, the severe sanction often
meant that a troublemaker was forced to fend for himself in the
wilderness for a period of time or sent to live with another, unrelated group.

Modern forms of banishment vary, depending on the band involved. The
sanction has never been intended to strip a person of his legal
status as an Indian. But exiled band members are barred from
accessing government housing and education supplied on their home reserve.

"The current judicial system doesn't seem to correct our problems,"
said Chief Daryl Watson, who leads the Mistawasis First Nation, about
90 kilometres west of Prince Albert, Sask. His band adopted
banishment early this year after consulting with elders; so far, one
member and one non-member have been exiled from the reserve.

"Banishment is a punishment, but there are no cells, no bars. A
person is sent away to think about what they've done and whether they
can change their ways," Mr. Watson said.

Sakej Henderson, director of the Saskatoon-based Native Law Centre of
Canada, said the rebirth of banishment is a sign and statement that
frustrated bands "are taking control of their own problems, instead
of letting external people do it."

"It's a new self-assertion. . . . One of the first expressions of
self-determination is to take on the tough issues," he said.

He said the re-emergence of this form of community pressure is
intriguing because the bands are pushing ahead despite the potential
legal quagmire the issue raises.

Banishment originally arose as a sanction because aboriginal legal
thought revolves around the concept of consent, he explained. When a
person's behaviour is destructive or disruptive, the band member is
no longer consenting to being part of the greater community and its
accepted values and must leave until he is ready to respect them, Mr.
Henderson added.

He said banishment is considered a "positive step" because the member
is given the opportunity to fix his problems, usually with the
promise that he will be welcomed back with open arms if he does.

Indian Affairs spokesman Trevor Sutter said that in most bands the
use of banishment is passed as a resolution rather than a bylaw, and,
as such, the government can't legally step in to stop it. However, he
said, a disgruntled banished member could approach police and the
courts for help.

The Samson proposal (which is still being tinkered with to figure out
how it would interact with the Canadian court system) would use a
"sentencing circle" of social workers, elders and councillors to
determine terms of banishment.

But Mr. Buffalo conceded that the band is already getting complaints
about its plan and advice about potential legal roadblocks.

"The communities surrounding our area are saying, 'Well, you're just
farming off the problem onto us.' I'm saying, 'Yeah, well so what?
That's your problem,' " he said.

Mr. Buffalo said that if the courts or federal government were to
rule definitively that banishment is illegal, his band could use the
Criminal Code charge of being unlawfully in a place to deal with
miscreants. "We hopefully won't have to go that route," he added.

The band hopes its banishment plan could be enacted by spring, Mr.
Buffalo said. "If it works, I think other people in other communities
across Canada will be wanting to do the same thing."

But determining its success is no easy feat, warned Doug Ballantyne,
a band administrator with the Grand Rapids First Nation. His reserve,
located near The Pas in northwestern Manitoba, has been using
banishment for several years, exiling six people during that time.

"Most of these just sneak back onto the reserve. It's hard to
enforce," he said.

"I think it's lost some of its usefulness in this day and age," he
added. "When they leave now, they are often surrounded by the things
that got them into trouble in the first place."

But for others, such as Frank Brown, being exiled was a positive,
life-altering event.

When he was 14, the member of the Heiltsuk First Nation was sent to a
remote island off the central coast of British Columbia. There he had
eight months alone to think about his involvement in an armed robbery
and other youthful indiscretions, which had landed him at a youth
detention centre.

His family had urged the court to employ traditional, restorative
justice rather than a punitive approach. The judge supported the
unorthodox approach.

Mr. Brown, now 41, said that the experience changed his life, but
that it won't work for everybody.

"There's no question in my mind that if I didn't go through that
experience, I would be dead or in jail," he said in a telephone
interview from Bella Bella, B.C.

"It's not going to work for everybody. I think that the person has to
really want to change. It's not an excuse. It's not an easy way out.
The person has to be ready to change."

Ten years after his temporary banishment, he participated in a public
washing ceremony, or quxua, to recount what happened and thank those
who helped him, and later made a documentary about his experience.