Many of the two million Native Americans are in the process of reawakening their traditional peacemaking ways, finding the human and other resources needed to institutionalize "sacred justice" within their tribes. The recognition that adversarial courts--the method of justice which was imposed upon tribes--have contributed to the weakening of their communities is an impetus to the search for the type of justice system which reflects tribal values and practices. A thoughtful move toward the development of comprehensive tribal justice systems (a system with courts, traditional peacemaking modified for the contemporary context, and violence prevention programs) is occurring across Indian country. Discussions are prevalent on how to identify and perhaps codify common and customary law, as well as on how, specifically, to describe traditional conflict resolution processes.
The approximately 500 "recognized" tribes in the United States (in addition to Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians, Urban Indians, and Canadian aboriginal bands) have diverse social and governmental structures. They maintain various types of tribal and traditional courts and formal and informal peacemaking procedures. Native American tribes vary as individual personalities vary and in terms of the degree to which they are traditionalist or progressive, bicultural, or urban and acculturated. Nevertheless, there are some common, general tendencies when they come to define the type of justice which feels, and is, Indian. "Sacred justice" is Indian justice and is practiced in a variety of peacemaking forums. Sacred justice is not the goal of justice found in adversarial courts. Courts seek distributive or "wild-and-rough" justice.