Who is Responsible for a Person Becoming Violent? TORAT CHOVEVEI A YCT Community Learning Project Study Guide: Parashat Toldot This study guide was made possible by funds granted by the Covenant Foundation. The statements made and the views expressed, however, are solely the responsibility of the author.

Canada’s Residential Schools : The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Volume 5 pp. 220-222. http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Final%20Reports/Volume_5_Legacy_English_Web.pdf
Although some Aboriginal people have been wrongfully convicted of crimes that they did not commit, most are in jail for having committed some offence. The available evidence suggests that these offences are likely to be violent and are likely to involve alcohol or other drugs. Over half of those who had been convicted had been convicted of assault or sexual offences or driving offences, 24.2% had been convicted of theft, 11.3% had been convicted of drug offences, 8.1% had been convicted of robbery, and 4.8% had been convicted of murder. There are higher rates of crime on reserve than off reserve.

The Commission cannot ignore these facts, as uncomfortable as they may be. We also need to look beyond the statistics to hear from the Survivors about the reasons why they committed offences. We must understand the reasons why those affected by the intergenerational legacy of residential schools commit crimes if we are to reduce offences among Aboriginal people and the growing crisis of Aboriginal overrepresentation in prison.

Willy Carpenter was forced to attend the Roman Catholic school in Aklavik, nwt. He recalled,

"The RC Mission was the roughest place that I’d ever been in my life; the hostel, you know, that school. We’d get picked on, get into a lot of fights; I was very young but I learned how to fight. I had to protect myself. As I grew up, I kept that up. I got married, and without realizing what I was doing, I’ve been teaching my children what I know best; hardship, rough time … I started serving time at a very young age; started going in jail. I was not even 17 years old when I went to jail. Lots of us; I met a lot of my school mates in jail ... All my boys are in jail; two of, two of my youngest ones, right now, are in jail; waiting for court. I blame myself for that … The thing I do best, crime. I’m not proud of it. Now my boys are in there. I’ve been teaching them without realizing that I was teaching them; they learned it from me. It goes on and on; probably my kids will teach their kids the same thing I taught them; I don’t know, who knows? Goes on and on and on; life goes on."

...Many Canadians may fail to understand how the present crisis of Aboriginal overrepresentation in prison is related to residential schools when many of the remaining Survivors are over fifty years of age. The answer lies in the intergenerational effects of the residential school experience that are passed on through families and often through the child welfare systems. Diana Lariviere was hit with the strap in residential school, and she saw her daughter using the same harsh techniques; “she’ll just say, ‘Mom, that’s how you taught us.’”

While some social science research supports the connection between the residential schools and the commission of criminal offences, there is a need for more Canadian data that examines this connection. In the absence of such data, the Commission has examined examples of Aboriginal offenders. The picture that emerges through court documents is one in which Aboriginal overrepresentation in prison can be directly connected to problems experienced by Aboriginal people whose roots are deep in the intergenerational legacy of residential schools. The list of such problems reads like a social minefield. It includes, poverty, addiction, abuse, racism, family violence, mental health, child welfare involvement, loss of culture, and an absence of parenting skills…

Lois Haight Herrington, Personal Responsibility in Criminal Law , 77 Cornell L. Rev. 1057 (1992)
Available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol77/iss5/24
...At this point we will consider the government's role in the interaction between individuals in society and the criminal law. Who is responsible when a person is raped, robbed, or murdered? Throughout the history of the common law, the inquiry was focused on the actor. In twentieth century America, however, some have suggested that a wider net of responsibility be cast. In placing responsibility for crime, is it legitimate to consider the responsibility of the perpetrator's family, the educational system, the neighborhood, the environment, the victim or the system itself? Some say yes. Others argue that such considerations simply allow the actor to avoid the responsibility which is his alone...
Any meaningful discussion of personal responsibility in crime must necessarily examine the entire criminal justice system. Should the criminal justice system focus on other issues besides the guilt or innocence of the actor? In the pursuit of other laudable goals, such as protection of constitutional rights, should physical evidence or confessions which clearly connect the defendant to the charged crimes be withheld from the jurors ruling on his guilt or innocence? For example, the protection provided by the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, the exclusionary rule, and Miranda, become open to question or analysis. Or are there other remedies which will safeguard constitutional guarantees but would not absolve everyone of responsibility?

One of the major objectives of government should be the safety and protection of its citizens, either through the military in the time of war, or through law enforcement in the time of peace. Has there been, however, an insidious change in our national thinking? Have we put the burden on the innocent citizen to stay out of harm's way, rather than requiring, as any civilization must, that people do not break the law? Some believe we have shifted responsibility for crime from those who do it to those who suffer it...
We have laws to ensure some minimum level of behavior that is universally recognized as being essential for a civilized society. Laws reflect the values of our society. And the seriousness with which we hold these values is measured by the penalty imposed when these values are violated. Therefore, how do we in the United
States reflect our values for human life and welfare when threatened by rape and murder, robbery, burglary or drug trafficking? How do we, as a civilized society, place responsibility for uncivil behavior? Who should be punished? For what reasons should we punish? What criteria should we utilize in devising appropriate penalties? Is rehabilitation still a viable goal, or is it simply "habilitation" now? What role does deterrence play, and is it feasible with our current sentencing standards? Should we, as a society, punish for the instructional value for the next generation? Some reformers today legitimize incapacitation by stating that as long as criminals are in jail and prison, they are not victimizing innocent citizens.
I believe that few subjects impact our lives more than personal responsibility in criminal law...

Lewis Mumford, The City in History, Harcourt, Brace &World, New York, 1961. pp. 22-25
...At first such hunters might not merely have been tolerated but actively welcome. For the hunter played a useful part in the Neolithic economy. With his mastery of weapons, with his hunting skills, he would protect the village against its most serious, probably its only, enemies: the lion, the tiger, the wolf, the alligator. The hunter still knew how to stalk and kill these beasts, whereas the villager probably lacked the weapons , and still more the needed audacity to do so. Over the centuries security may have made the villager passive and timid.

At this point the written record comes to our aid, though the first reciprocal arrangement between village and stronghold must long have preceded it. The archetypal chieftain in Sumerian legend is Gilgamesh: the heroic hunter, the strong protector, not least significantly, the builder of the wall around Uruk. And in the old Babylonian account of the feats of still another hunter, Enkidu, we read: He “took his weapon to chase the lions: the shepherds might rest at night, he caught the wolves: he captured the lions: the chief cattlemen could lie down. Enkidu is their watchman, the bold man, the unique hero.”...
The shepherd may in fact be looked upon as the spiritual brother of the hunter, his better self, stressing the protective rather than the predatory function. Etana, one of the early kings, was a shepherd, so were the gods Lugubanda and Dumuzi in Mesopotamian myth, and so was David in Isarael at a much later period; while Hammurabi, a great organizer and conqueror, still put himself forward as a shepherd of his peoples.

Both vocations call forth leadership and responsibility above and demand docile compliance below. But that of the hunter elevated the will-to-power and eventually transferred his skill in slaughtering game to the more highly organized vocation of regimenting or slaughtering other men; while that of the shepherd moved toward the curbing of force and violence and the institution of some measure of justice, through which even the weakest member of the flock might be protected and nurtured. Certainly coercion and persuasion, aggression and protection, war and law, power and love were alike solidified in the stones of the earliest urban communities, when they finally take form. When kingship appeared, the war lord and the law lord became land lord too.