Two experts in Navajo justice say there’s a better alternative to the white man’s way of punishing criminals, which has filled the nation’s prisons and torn apart countless families, regardless of whether the punishment makes the criminal a better person or helps the victim heal.

“The concern of the criminal justice system is the criminal act. A person is not a criminal until he commits a criminal act,” said Robert Yazzie, a retired chief justice for the Navajo Nation.

“Our concern is the individual and how to get him to stop that act,” he said. “He is not someone to be thrown away. He is still a human being, a brother.”

Yazzie and Philmer Bluehouse, a traditional Navajo peacemaker, outlined the basic concepts of the Navajo Nation Criminal Code during a forum Wednesday evening at Haskell Indian Nations University’s Cultural Center and Museum.

In 2000, the Navajo Nation Council eliminated jail time and fines for 79 offenses. It replaced harsh sentencing guidelines with “Nalyeeh,” a peacemaking process that involves a victim, a perpetrator and their extended families sitting in a circle and talking about what happened and how to achieve a positive outcome from a negative event. Reconciliation takes precedence over retribution.

“Just by talking, a person can be healed,” Yazzie said, noting that in a typical courtroom setting a defendant does not have to account for his or her actions. “He has the right to remain silent.”

But in the Navajo peacemaking process, he said, the perpetrator is expected to account for his actions. It also assumes the victim’s losses will be made whole.

The 26,000-square-mile Navajo reservation includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

Yazzie and Bluehouse are in Leavenworth this week, teaching the principles of peacemaking to inmates at the federal penitentiary.

About 30 people attended the Haskell forum.

Robert Yazzie, retired chief justice for the Navajo Nation, greets people at Haskell Indian Nations University's Cultural Center and Museum. Yazzie and Philmer Bluehouse (fourth from left in background) spoke Wednesday about how the Navajo Nation Council overhauled its criminal code, switching to a system built on reconciliation rather than punishment.