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Justice Shouldn’t Be Revenge by Another Name
If we moved from a punitive system to a rehabilitative system, we’d be a safer, fairer, kinder, and wealthier nation.
It would seem the mind reflexively rejects the idea that revenge and justice bear even a passing resemblance. The word “revenge” conjures images of vigilantism, asymmetrical responses, and violence — each of them having the feel of a cultural atavism. Justice, on the other hand, seems defined and sturdy, an objective and deliberate process serving to uphold our values and protect human rights to property, life, and the like.
Yet, in manifestation, what is justice but a state-sponsored form of revenge? If someone took a loved one from me, in the throes of rage commingled with dejection, I’d want them killed — locking them up in a cage for decades would have an attractive, savorous cruelty to it as well. This looks like revenge, does it not? Yet, one can, of course, be granted this under the auspices of justice.
In our conception of justice, we profess to aim at upholding the values of fairness and rightness, but how does it get us there? The only tool of justice is punishment. It doesn’t even so much as pretend to be any other way. “You will suffer as your victim has suffered,” declares the law: an eye for an eye. In this…
