Legal Justice

Legal Justice

Introduction

A poor man stole a watermelon in a village. He is desperate for food, he is also sick and has no access to proper welfare. He was captured, sentenced to jail for 5 years, and fined an exorbitant amount of money. On the other hand, a corrupt official that caused the State a loss of over 1 million dollars is sentenced to jail for the same amount of time as the watermelon man, and then was cut to only 1 year. Then, the official goes completely free, not even a parole.

This is just the many examples of legal injustice, and raises many questions about the current legal system. But is the current system just enough? The legal system has a purpose of protecting citizens and form citizens into good human beings by installing laws that specifically dictates what to do to become a good human being. It also needs to make sure that the citizens does not do things that may harm the rights of others or has negative effects towards the society. And it does that by imposing penalties upon violators, which may be in the form of prison, fines, corporal punishment in some countries, and sometimes, if the crime is severe enough, capital punishment. Capital punishment is merely a euphemism of a death sentence.

The problem is, how effective is imposing penalties upon violators in preventing the same violations from ever happening again? Not only that, is it actually fair and just for the violators? Many prisons in the world do not give the prisoners a comfortable place to live, with the exception of certain countries such as the Scandinavian prison system. And then there are countries applying the capital punishment, which effectively prevents the violator from ever fixing and redeeming themselves. And this is where the currently popular legal system begins to sway from it’s purposes.

Arguments

The penalty system of the currently popular legal system is based on the concept of carrots and sticks. Threaten the citizens with a harsh stick to make sure they do not violate any laws. The philosophy of this system is also based upon the concept of moral responsibility and Free Will. Basically, citizens would be too scared to violate the law because of the punishments, or if they violated it the first time, they won’t want to try it the second time. That seems quite effective, that is if human psychology is as simple as all other animals. But it is more complex, much more complex, let’s review.

Humans chose to do something only because their past had enabled them to do so. Which means the penalty system would only work effectively if the violators had a past that enables them to succumb to the penalty system. But what if they were raised to be strong willed people? People that won’t give up, that will never learn their mistakes. Or even worse, people who would find a way to work their way around the law. Eventually we can deduce that the reason crime rates are low in a country is not because of the actual laws and penalty system, but because the children of that nation is raised and educated properly. Otherwise, they would just find more loopholes in the system. And in some circumstances, if the officials made the punishment harsher, there might be stronger resistance, partly because of reverse psychology. Thus, the penalty system is only effective if the citizens are well educated and have a good past, if they aren’t, don’t expect the crime rates to drop.

How much justice does the penalty system delivers in the modern world? Not as much as the “righteous hatred” it continuosly propagates of course. In fact, it is as much as people who actually forgives everyone unconditionally, in other words, almost nothing at all. The penalty system is based on the concept of moral responsibility. Anyone who does a good thing or a bad thing by their own Free Will deserve praise or blame, reward or punishment respectively. One problem, both concepts have been declared and proven false, unjust, illogical, and unscientific. Which makes the penalty system outright unjust and unfair, why exactly? As we have known, the reason a person choses to do something is because their past enables to do so, both physically and mentally. If the past doesn’t provide the necessary information and correct arrangement to do so, then the person won’t chose to do that particular something.

Reviewing from a previous essay about forgiveness, we have identified that people who committed actions known to be bad are mentally unwell, they are mentally flawed, broken, sick. Yes they are not insane, but if their past is perfectly fine, would they commit evil and atrocious acts? Absolutely not, and that is a certain fact. As a result, when a person violates a law, that is because there is something in their past, and subsequently their mentality and psychology that enables them to violate the law, not because of Free Will and choice. This means when a violator is punished, or even worse, sentenced to death, what we are doing is essentially breaking his mentality and psychology even more. We are doing nothing to fix their broken selfs, and instead we isolate them and make them suffer in prison cells. And if we impose the capital punishment, that means we will effectively prevent the violator to ever realize their mistakes and redeem themselves, not only that it hurts family members and loved ones. Imprisonment does a similar thing, just not as bad.  And that is why the penalty system is simply unfair and unjust. Instead of actually curing the disease, it only worsens it, with a fake facade of reparation.

Then what must be done then to fix this ineffective and unfair penalty system? First of all, if a country has high crime rates, or a rising crime rate, then do not blame the legal system or the law. Blame the parents, the economy, the environment, and of course, the education system. Especially the education system. People commit crimes because their past enables them to do so, and that usually translates to improper education and a terrible past. So the first thing to do as a preventive action is reevaluating the education system and then fixing it, that way the crime rates will be reduced. As a combative action, what we must do is not imprison violators, instead put them in rehabilitation. In rehabilitation, inmates are treated psychologically so that their mentality would make them into good and moral citizens, and they are reeducated. They have all the same rights, the difference being they would still be somewhat isolated, for the safety of the society. Eventually they would be reintegrated into society as fellow citizens of the nation. And instead of treating them as disgusting vile scum of the earth, we treat them as a fellow human that needs help. That is the brief outline of a solution to this penalty system problem, clearly a fairer and just system.

Conclusion

The penalty system has brought more hatred, loss, sadness, and mental deterioration than it delivers what it is supposed to deliver, justice. It hinges upon the concepts of carrots and sticks, Free Will, and moral responsibility. The problem, human psychology is not as easy to control as other animals with the carrots and sticks. And Free Will and moral responsibility has been strucked null and void. Of course, exposing the problem without delivering a potential solution is useless, as a result, a proposed solution is to fix the education system, and create a fairer and just rehabilitation system that actually helps the violators to get back on their feet and become a better person. In the end, the legal system of today, is declared to be ineffective, unfair, and unjust for the human race. But the point is, perhaps we have to reevaluate our understanding of legal justice.