[IPSM] Nunavut places five-year bet that hunting, culture will reduce violent crime

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Nunavut places five-year bet that hunting, culture will reduce violent 
crime
BOB WEBER

Sun Dec 25, 3:07 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20051225/ca_pr_on_na/nunavut_justice_gamble

IQALUIT, Nunavut (CP) - This morning they were young offenders, 
breathing the stale air of jail.

This afternoon they are hunters, zooming over the snowy tundra in 
snowmobiles and sleds.

Rifles sit beside them. Caribou skins wrap them to ward off the cold. It 
is December, when the sun never rises more than a hand's breadth above 
the horizon.

Together with two employees from the jail, the four young men scan the 
snow and stony hills for caribou, wolves, polar bears, ptarmigan - 
anything worth shooting.

Tonight they will be inmates again - but maybe not quite the same 
inmates they were when they set out.

This is Nunavut's great gamble - that teaching modern Inuit the ways of 
their ancestors will cut violent crime rates that are many times above 
the Canadian average.

"Until you know who you are, how do you change?" asks Ron McCormick, 
director of corrections for Nunavut.

Not everyone believes that knowing how to skin a caribou matters 
anymore. Standing on a headland watching the half-frozen waters of 
Frobisher Bay turn pink in the 3 o'clock sunset, one of the offenders is 
asked how important hunting is to him.

"Not very," he shrugs. "Better than being in jail."

But the territory has to try something.

Nunavummiut endure some of Canada's highest crime rates. Property 
offences occur at nearly double the national average. The violent crime 
rate is a whopping 8.3 times higher than in the rest of the country.

In 2004, Nunavut had 279 sexual assaults out of a population of 30,000.

"People feel it," says Iqaluit Mayor Elizabeth Sheutiapik. "It's a high 
rate for our community. Usually, you still know your neighbours here."

Much of the crime stems from alcohol, drugs and social dysfunction, says 
Const. Pauline Melanson as she begins her Friday night shift in Iqaluit.

"I expect to see a lot of intoxicated people, assaults - whether it be 
common assaults or spousals - threats of suicides, break-enters . . ."

Melanson's not in her truck five minutes before the radio crackles: "A 
group of males are assaulting another male," says the bored dispatcher. 
"They've got knives and forks and they're all intoxicated."

The house is deserted by the time Melanson arrives. But right away 
there's a call about another drinking party, and after that there's an 
interview with an 11-year old girl whose friend says she has been 
sexually assaulted by her father.

"It's government payday, so it's going to get worse," sighs Melanson, an 
Inuk from Arctic Bay whose father is a retired member of the force.

Booze may be the trigger for much of Nunavut's crime, but anger is the 
root, says Sammy Quamagiaq, an elder on Iqaluit's community justice 
committee.

Something is broken between many parents and children, Quamagiaq, 67, 
says through a translator. Coping skills and emotional outlets have not 
been passed on.

"There's a lot of people who are hurting from the past, from when they 
were a child," says Quamagiaq, in front of a wall showing pictures of 
herself with a polar bear she'd killed.

"They didn't talk about it and it became bigger and bigger and they just 
got angry. That's when the assaults and the mischief happen."

The great hope of the program is that something will click.

"There's a whole generation of men out there who have to figure out 
there's some connection between their alcohol use and how they treat 
their families," says Markus Weber, Nunavut's deputy minister of justice.

The land is where that might happen.

Groups of up to four inmates are sent to outpost camps run by carefully 
selected operators for as long as three months. Every day, in all but 
the worst weather, they learn to hunt, feeding themselves and local elders.

Over long days tracking caribou and long nights in an isolated cabin, 
trust develops. Away from friends with a fresh bottle, away from 
reminders of past abuse, away from a jail cell, violent and violated men 
open up.

"We hear repeatedly from inmates that anything to do with the land, 
anything tied to their culture, has made the most difference to them in 
terms of understanding themselves and their behaviour," Weber says.

Nearly all programs at the Baffin Correctional Centre have a land 
component. The number of inmates using them has more than doubled, from 
46 in 1999 to 96 by December 2005.

It may already be working.

Chargeable incidents of violent crime - allegations that RCMP find have 
some substance - have fallen 15 per cent since 2003. Break-enters have 
dropped 26 per cent; vehicle theft is 23 down per cent.

Weber believes Nunavut has about five years to learn if its approach 
will work. During that time, such risk factors as unemployment and poor 
housing will at least not get any worse.

But by 2010, the territory's growing population will have created a new 
set of demographic pressures, he predicts.

"We only have that window of the next five years," he says. "Once that 
demographic hits, it's too late."

Not everyone believes that returning to the land will heal the source of 
Nunavut's appalling rate of violence. Even some operators acknowledge 
it's no panacea.

"Some want to learn where they come from and their culture and some 
don't," says Charlie Audlakiak, who manages the territory's land 
program. "Some guys are very positive and some are very negative."

Some - "just a few" - return to the land program after reoffending.

It's hard to deny that something happens to an Inuk on the land his 
ancestors hunted.

On their way back to jail, the young-offenders-turned-hunters stop 
midway across a frozen river. Someone chips through six centimetres of 
ice to the clear water beneath.

Styrofoam cups are produced. Everyone dips into the icy stream and 
drinks. It's almost sacramental.

"What do you learn from the land?" one young man is asked. He looks 
upstream to where the river has carved a channel into the tundra.

-

IQALUIT, Nunavut (CP) - Facts about crime, justice and the land program 
in Nunavut:

Violent crime rate, 2004 - 946 per 100,000 nationally; 7,884 in Nunavut.

Sexual assault rate, 2004 - 74 per 100,000 nationally; 941 in Nunavut.

Property crime rate, 2004 - 3,991 per 100,000 nationally; 6,959 in Nunavut.

Percentage of Inuit in Nunavut - 80.

Percentage of Inuit in Baffin Correctional Centre, December 2005 - 100.

Number of Inuit in land programs at BCC - 46 in 1999; 102 in 2004; 96 by 
December 2005.

Number of camps contracted by Nunavut Justice - five in 1999; eight in 
2005.

Number of offenders per camp - Usually one or two, four maximum.

Average length of stay in camp - Three months.

Cost per day of land program - About $150 per inmate per day, about 30 
per cent less than jail.

Quote - " Until you know who you are, how do you change?"

Ron McCormick, Nunavut director of corrections.

Sources: Juristat, Nunavut Justice Department.
-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
    --Bertholt Brecht.