Informal justice systems and decolonized justice alternatives play significant roles for rural crime control and dispute settlement. They are two distinct types of mechanisms with different backgrounds, evolution and functions.

‘Informal justice system’ is an umbrella term that encompasses different types of customary, traditional, local, tribal and Indigenous justice systems. These systems are usually conceptualized as non-state justice systems as opposed to the formal state justice systems, which have written laws and procedures for decision making and enforcement mechanisms. However, each informal justice system is unique in its formalities and philosophical underpinnings. When people began living together in societies, the informal justice system evolved to maintain social order and cohesion. Hence, they are found in rural societies across the world from time immemorial.

Some of the informal systems studied in recent years include Jirga in Afghanistan, Shalish in Bangladesh, Bashingantahe in Burundi, Adat in East Timor and Indonesia, Katarungang Pambarangay in Philippines, Mayan in Guetemala, Gacaca in Rwanda, Xeer in Somalia and Salif in Sudan (see Wojkowska, 2006). Many of these Indigenous and informal justice systems survived, even in territories and states occupied by colonial powers for centuries, and many informal rural justice systems continue to play a significant role in dealing with rural crime (see McGuire and Palys, 2020).

When Indigenous justice approaches were replaced with state-led formal criminal justice systems in colonial states, the people did not accept the foreign systems for various reasons including the complexity of the systems and inconsistency with their distinguished cultural, religious or customary beliefs, norms, values and understanding of crimes and justice (see Agozino, 2019). From the beginning, public resistance and reluctance to resort to these formal systems was strong.

After gaining independence from colonial powers, the decolonization of these formal justice systems at different levels started in many countries. Decolonized alternatives are created in various ways including by reforming or harmonizing the formal justice system to suit the needs of the Indigenous population, by recognizing parallel Indigenous systems, by abolition of the hierarchy of formal over informal justice systems or by establishing new laws and guidelines that reformed the traditional informal systems to better suit the needs of the changing societies (see Agozino, 2019; McGuire and Palys, 2020).