Reinforcing Injustice: A Complex Adaptive Systems Framework to Address the Criminalization of Indigenous Life

Canada’s criminal justice system functions as a maladaptive complex adaptive system that continues to produce disproportionate harm to Indigenous Peoples, despite a decade of reform efforts following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. This paper uses a systems science framework, with a focus on complex adaptive systems theory, to describe how colonial institutions absorb and convert potentially disruptive reforms into symbolic outputs that preserve structural continuity. Through a three-stage analysis, it addresses the resilience of the justice system, identifies systemic requisites for Indigenous legal resurgence, and presents Indigenous Legal Orders as emergent, autonomous, and culturally grounded systems of law and governance. The analysis concludes by identifying leverage points for structural transformation and proposes ways behavioral scientists, informed by culturo-behavioral systems science and contextual behavioral science, can support this work in principled partnership with Indigenous communities.