S moke S ignals
MARCH 1, 2017
11
Give peacemaking a chance
Tribal Court program
seeks more participants
By Bethany Bea
Smoke Signals Intern
In any community, conflict is
inevitable.
While Grand Ronde has depart-
ments dedicated to keeping the
peace, such as security and police,
Tribal Court has another option that
can help com-
munity mem-
bers make
peace with
each other.
The Peace-
maker Pro-
gram, which
uses tradi-
tional meth-
Lisa Archuleta
ods to resolve
disputes among community mem-
bers, has been around for nine
years and is free to Tribal members.
Tribal Court Programs Specialist
Annie Schmidt said the program
helps people solve disputes in a
non-adversarial way.
“It uses the cultural method
of having a known and respect-
ed member of the community as
the peacemaker,” Schmidt said.
“Peacemakers do not come up with
solutions. They help the two parties
come up to their own solution so
it’s an agreeable situation overall.”
She said Tribal members should
see the program as a resource sep-
arate from the Tribal Court system.
Although the program is through
Tribal Court, peacemaking sessions
are held in other areas around cam-
pus and the atmosphere is more
informal, she said.
Lisa Archuleta, Tribal Services
representative at Grand Ronde’s
Portland office, is one of two peo-
ple currently certified to work as a
peacemaker.
Archuleta said she applied when
she first heard about the program
in 2008 because the idea appealed
to her.
“I filled out the application be-
cause to me at the time it sounded
like a pretty neat program where
people wouldn’t have to go to court,”
she said. “They could sit and have
a mediator instead of having to go
through the judge.”
Archuleta said she thinks dis-
cussion-based settings are more
comfortable for people than a court-
room, but so far she hasn’t had an
opportunity to lead a peacemaking
session.
“I’ve never really used the pro-
gram,” she said. “I’ve gotten called
a couple times, but then it’s been
canceled.”
While peacemaking isn’t usually
an option for
people who
already find
themselves in
Tribal Court,
Schmidt said,
it can be a
great resource
to keep prob-
lems from es-
Lewis Younger
calating to the
point of litiga-
tion in other court systems.
Lewis Younger, Environmental
Services manager at Spirit Moun-
tain Casino, is the second certified
peacemaker. He also volunteered
when the program was new and
has participated in three sessions.
“I’ve never walked out of a peace-
making session where the peo-
ple weren’t smiling and happy,”
Younger said. “And most times,
the only thing that they needed to
do was just be heard, and felt, and
understood.”
He said it’s a shame program par-
ticipation isn’t very high and that
better promotion and more Tribal
Council encouragement would help.
“It’s probably one of the best-kept
secrets of our Tribe,” Younger said.
“We have some great programs, we
really, really do, that aren’t being
utilized because the word’s just not
getting out.”
Schmidt said another key to
raising interest is peer-to-peer
sharing of success stories. Since the
program is completely voluntary,
people will be more likely to use it if
they know people who recommend
it, she said.
If community members are in a
dispute, one or both parties can re-
quest a peacemaker through Tribal
Court. The court, Tribal police or
department heads also may refer
people, but they can’t mandate
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Photo by Michelle Alaimo
Tribal Court Programs Specialist Annie Schmidt is seeking more participants
in and volunteers for the Peacemaker Program. The program aims to reflect
the Tribe’s tradition of using respected members of the community to
mediate conflicts.
participation, Schmidt said.
Though participation at Grand
Ronde has been spotty over the
years, Schmidt said programs like
these are important because they
can strengthen communities.
Brett Taylor, director of the Trib-
al Justice Exchange, a department
of the Center for Court Innovation
in New York, has helped create
peacemaking programs in urban,
non-Tribal communities – one in
Brooklyn and another in Syracuse
– with great success.
Taylor, a former defense attor-
ney, said that certain issues are
not just ideal for peacemaking, they
are impossible to prosecute fairly in
typical courts.
“There are a lot of cases that end
up in the western-style of courts,
the adversarial system,” said Tay-
lor, “that that court system is not
designed or equipped to handle.” He
cited issues like neighbor relations,
family problems, graffiti and park-
ing space disputes as examples.
He said that regular court sys-
tems only look at what happened in
an attempt to punish, where peace-
making looks at why something
happened in an attempt to heal.
“Peacemakers are members of
the community. Peacemakers can
set a community norm, not only
can but are expected to share of
themselves, give stories, use those
stories as learning tools instead of
the approach that courts always do,
which is pontificate at you.”
Younger, too, said attorneys dom-
inate in courtrooms, which means
he has never seen a court ruling
where the decision was the best
outcome for both parties.
With peacemaking, because the
parties involved in a dispute are
present every step of the way, they
have a hand in whatever resolution
is reached, Taylor said.
“If you’re part of the solution, do
you think you’re going to live up to
your word? More than if someone just
imposes something on you?” he said.
Schmidt also stressed the im-
portance of accountability in the
peacemaking process. She said that
issues happen in communities and
to move past them and continue to
co-exist, all parties need to lay their
cards out on the table.
“Conflict and dispute is natural,”
Schmidt said. “It happens in all
relationships and if you’re saying,
‘Oh, we don’t have any problems,
so we’re not going to talk about it,’
nothing’s going to get better.”
She said peacemaking starts con-
versations so community members
can learn from each other and the
community as a whole can grow.
While some issues – like divorce
and child abuse cases – aren’t eligible
for the peacemaking process, many
community issues such as those that
arise between neighbors, landlords
and tenants or among family mem-
bers can benefit from the program
before they become worse.
Younger said the way these types
of issues escalate resembles di-
vorce.
“Nobody wakes up in the morning
saying, ‘You know what, I think
I’m going to divorce my wife, or I’m
going to divorce my husband'," he
said. “It builds up over time and it’s
a lot of little things. It’s just a lot
of little things and they become en-
cumbered and they become heavy.
And pretty soon it’s just one thing,
and that is the last straw.”
Younger said simply being heard
can have a placating effect on an-
gry parties. Participants can relax,
speak and listen with the knowl-
edge that if they get off track the
peacemaker can bring them back,
he said.
“I’ve got a firm philosophy that
in any dispute, there’s your side,
there’s my side, and somewhere in
the middle lies the truth,” he said.
For more information about the
Peacemaker Program and other
Tribal Court volunteer opportuni-
ties, such as becoming an advocate
for Tribal children in abuse and
neglect cases, visit the Tribal Court
in the Governance Building or go
to: www.grandronde.org/about/
tribal-court/court-programs/