Indigeneity Through the Eyes of the Colonizer:

An Analysis of Sentencing Circles

Abstract

On the public stage, Canada politically promotes a multicultural agenda that often undercuts or obfuscates historically determined experiences of colonialism that persist contemporaneously in Indigenous communities. Using post-colonial and feminist legal theory, the following essay argues that novel criminal justice processes, such as the ‘sentencing circle’ employ principles of Henry and Tator’s model of ‘democratic racism’. This essay argues that sentencing circles engage in ‘pan-Indigenous’ homogenization, invisibilizes the experiences of Indigenous women, and often leaves Indigenous women exposed to further victimization. Despite the multicultural premise that supposedly characterizes such non-traditional methods, this article reveals that such policies may be uninformed and improperly applied.