ABSTRACT
To appreciate the challenges to crime prevention in First Nations in Saskatchewan, one must know the history of settler-First Nation relations and the current legal system. The Numbered Treaties of Peace and Friendship had been signed between the Crown and the First Nations in Saskatchewan between 1874 and 1906. The spirit and intent of the Treaties were to share the land but to retain the rights of self-determination. However, this treaty relationship was replaced by a legislative relationship in 1876. The Indian Act imposed foreign government structures and governance on to the First Nations, which had been divided into small reservations scattered throughout Saskatchewan. Process and systemic change is most often shallow, program driven and fleeting. Nothing less than full structural change will have a lasting and deep impact. It then becomes a question of what kind of change is required, and who manages that change.
