Does Our Penal System Administer Justice? - George

fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. (Leviticus 24:20, ESV)

I get the impression that most people think eye for an eye Old Testament justice is primitive and severe. But the lex talionis, as it is called, comes to us in a complex narrative that provides a strong foundation for equitable justice for all.

Part of what drives the story in Leviticus is the guilty man's mixed ethnicity. He is only half-Israelite. The implied question from the camp is, "what kind of justice does this guy get, a guy that doesn't fit into the categories we have?" God tells them justice is the same. Even a sojourner in the land should get the same treatment as the Israelite. This is important because human nature has a tendency to want to exact more from the guilty than the guilty have done, especially if they are different from us. And eye for an eye explains that NO MORE than x shall be done. On the flip side we also see a human tendency to judge on behalf of the powerful over the weak. Eye for an eye reserves justice for the weak against the powerful. The elite don’t get a free pass, NO LESS than x shall be done.

We don’t see this kind of justice in our day and age. Our penal system is a mess. And most efforts in recent years to fix it have only made it worse.

We tend to ignore this problem because the system does, by-and-large, remove undesirables from the camp of the power class. Our system protects our day-to-day experience. We consider this justice. And we will probably continue to do so as long as it works for us.

Keeping the camp safe and pure is a key part of justice. This is in the Leviticus story too. Injustice isn’t only between the guilty and the victim, the camp is also an interested party. But we have made the camp into an idol, the other parties of injustice get sacrificed at its altar.

A victim’s hope for equal justice is reduced to how much jail time the guilty receives. And even then it isn’t the sentence of a work-free life of medical benefits, education, libraries, 3 meals a day, and gym membership that satisfies the victim. Victims can hope for no real justice. They are only left with the disturbing temptation to hope new crimes are visited upon the guilty during their stay.

Which brings us to the criminals. All sentences are the same - incarceration. The only difference between eye justice and tooth justice is time (and sentences are inconsistent). Again, unofficially, “justice” is served at the depraved hands of the community of the incarcerated. This, of course, is no true justice.

Our current system only serves one element. The guilty party and the victim are run through a disturbing charade so that the power class can pat itself on the back for its well ordered and clean society. It praises itself for its humane system - evolved beyond the primitive nature of yesteryear. Yet righteousness is not to be found here. We hate to punish so we pretend to rehabilitate. But we know pseudo-rehabilitation doesn’t serve justice so we punish anyway (with our hands clean) by quarantining criminals in a sub-human thunderdome. We end up doing none of the things we say we prize and all of the things we say we loathe, and we do it with a smile because it works for us.

Does Our Penal System Administer Justice? -Matt

The simple answer to this question is yes.  I say simple because the penal system in our context is the administration arm of the judicial system.  If a person commits a crime, and is caught, he appears before a court and is judged.  From there the imposed punishment is administered by our prison system. 

Done; end of story.  The penal system administers justice.  Next question?

Wait.

The more nuanced answer is no.  The reason why this is more nuanced is that one needs to look at what is justice to understand if the penal system is administering this justice.  On the most basic level justice is fairness (in both the context of punishment or reward).  It is the desire or ability to reward good behavior or to correct bad behavior, and like in the case of money, it is to be a method to expunge the debt.  In the case of the penal system the operational sphere is with regard to justice is punishment for a crime.

For the sake of this argument I think it is important to look at what is considered a crime.  I, in my infinite wisdom, would define a crime as simply any act that interferes with the Rights of another person.  And that the government, which is a social contract that imbues authority, is the entity responsible for enforcing personal rights.  Our particular brand of government goes further to state that individuals are equal in standing and that there is no privileged class of people (regardless of race, gender or creed).  The protection of rights is the foundational principle for government and really it’s only authority.  Going further, a crime has two parties (while each party may consist of many people); the perpetrator (interferor) and the victim (interferee).  These are two separate parties and in no case can a crime be committed within one party.  I am unable to interfere in my own rights. 

Over 50% of the prison population (i.e. those tried in a court and had a sentence imposed and is currently being administered by the penal system) are classified as non-violent drug offenders.  What this means is that these persons were caught using or had drugs on their person and that they have no record of any violent act on a person or property.  A disproportionate number of these inmates are classified as minorities.  

Why is this important to note?

First, there is no evidence that drug use is greater or more frequent in minority populations as opposed to any other demographic.  So, if justice were blind to race and creed the demographic make up of the prison population for drug related offenses should be proportional.

Second, non-violent drug convections are victimless.  Remember, to be a crime there must be a victim and a perpetrator.  Who is the victim if I were to use drugs?  No doubt I may impact loved ones around me, but that does not constitute a violation of their rights. 

These two reasons (among many more I did not address) illustrate that the penal system does not administer justice (the key word being justice).  It does administer punishment for the court system, but this is not justice.