I’ve been thinking a lot this week about “equal justice under the law,” one of our supposed American values. The indictment and arrest of $Rump seems like the least that needs to be done. Not only do we have an excessive-punishment problem for women, minorities, and the poor. We have a not-enough-punishment problem for the rich and/or white and/or men.
So what about restorative justice as an option? Is it inherently more of a feminist version of justice? The idea behind it is to have more of a cooperative problem-solving approach to justice, limiting the adversarial aspect of our current system. Certainly many women are reluctant to try to obtain justice because there will be attempts to tear their testimony apart on the stand, and sometimes women want to be protected from domestic abusers but do not want them going to prison. Will restorative justice get us there?
I haven’t reached any firm conclusions, but my tentative conclusion is that we need both restorative and restrictive/punitive options as tools in our toolbox.
So for example, if you rob me, recover my belongings, understand what they mean to me, go and sin no more. If you did it out of desperation, hopefully social services will help provide resources.
But if you assaulted and terrorised me, I wouldn't want you anywhere near me and I wouldn't want to take a chance you'd do it again. Go to prison for a very long term.
When we are already so bad at even-handedly applying judicial discretion, it seems likely that we will have problems working this out in practice, at least any time soon. Can we codify it, i.e., punishment for felonies, alternatives for misdemeanours? Would it help at least somewhat balance out an unbalanced system or would it make things worse?
And what about the problem of people who fail to change their behaviour when they know that there’s not much of a punishment? For example, wage theft continues in part because even if caught, there is not much punishment, they just pay the money that hadn’t yet paid. Will people continue to commit crimes because they won’t get caught? Or will part of the restorative process be to teach the severity of the consequences of their acts? Will it make any difference, will they learn and agree that it’s wrong to continue?
And what about the lessons learned from someone escaping punishment? Did the failure to prosecute Reagan and Bush/Cheney lead to $Rump?
Is "restorative justice" potentially part of the solution? Or more of a complication?
Please discuss in the Comments.