Justice

[forsyth]

Which is more important to justice, punishing the guilty or making sure whatever it was doesn't happen again?

Comments

[frustratedpilot]

Depends on who's guilty. Then again, I'm not sure I have any hope left for "justice".

[colinmo.livejournal.com]

Pure justice would have to be punishing the guilty. It's all about principles, equity (eye for an eye), rigteousness, law (existing) and the administration thereof. Taking the dictionary definitions, of course.

If you mean the judicial system... I'd have to go with the same definition. Politicians, law-makers and police appear to be tasked with making sure it doesn't happen again (by wrangling, writing, and enforcing/ watching for law breaks respectively.)

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

What's the point of punishment if it doesn't stop the crime from happening again?

[colinmo.livejournal.com]

You didn't ask for a point, you asked for Justice. That's pure justice.

To really achieve lasting improvements to sociatial right it takes more than just Justice. Part of the point of the punishment is to server as a model for others pondering such pursuits, but that's a happy side effect. Justice requires help via other motivated actions to truly effect change as you say - preventing the crime from happening again.

[(Anonymous)]

But, to address your question, the point of Justice isn't to stop it from happening again. The point of Justice is to even up the scales.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

I'd say that's less Justice and more Vengance.

[colinmo.livejournal.com]

I was taking that one of the definitions from www.dictionary.com/justice:

Justice:
* The quality of being just; fairness.
1. The principle of moral rightness; equity.

Equal treatment. You do to me, I do to you. Admittedly it's a narrow interpretation; and yes I wholeheartedly agree that that's vengeance. But what's vengeance? Same place

Vengeance:
* Infliction of punishment in return for a wrong committed; retribution.

Sounds like Justice to me. Vengeance just has a poor PR agent. And it's not a lone avenger, or I'll cut out your eye cos you looked at my wife. It's punishment because you did something wrong. The justice system just abitrates it so it's equalitatively meted.

...Man, I think I should stick to Redemption.

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, the only difference between those two is who's telling the story. But the fact is Justice (as a big capitalized term) is not Prevention. Justice can work in tandem, but it is not the same thing at all.

A good judicial system should have both, in ratio.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I was thinking last night and figured this out after I shut my computer down. The point of justice is (or should be) to right the wrong (as much as possible, easy with things like theft, not so easy with others), and to prevent it from happening again. If you're not trying to prevent it, you're just running around smacking people constantly. And it doesn't do anything. Grautitous punishment doesn't do anything worth being called Justice.

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

I think you're missing the definitions again.

Justice isn't what should do both. The Justice system is what should do both.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

The justice system is supposed to embody justice, is it not? Thus the name?

And the concept of justice matters on more personal levels than just abstract systems. If you want to do something to somebody because of what they did, is that justice, or revenge? Will it prevent it from happening again? If not, then it's probably just grautitous vengance that won't actually fix anything, though it might make you feel better. Until they come back for their eye for an eye, and everything turns into poop.