I’m not talking about the idea that those people who fear jail are the ones most likely to abide by the rules and laws of society, I’m talking about the concept of natural justice how we view it and how it is always those people who seem to have the ingrained sense of it who when confronted by injustice are the ones that are affronted the most.
When unjust decisions are effected, unfair situations enacted, gross miscarriages, in not just law but in everyday life, carried out the only people that come away feeling any loss of equlibrium are those poor sods that profess to know something about what would be fair and what would be just.
That we even try to redress the imbalance of burdens or the misappropriation of blame, punishment and stigma is suggestive of an instinct for justice. Where that instinct may lie, perhaps innately, perhaps a learned social value without which we would live in a perpetual state of chaos, a kind of quantum society if you like.
Applying justice is one of the most difficult subjects for an Anarchist or staunch Libertarian to approach, because to apply a form of justice generally translates as coercion; yet we’d find it nigh on impossible to live without it. As it is unlikely that the future will herald some kind of perfect human race which can live justly and responsibly, the on going need for justice or a justice system is a simple conclusion.
The trouble is the subjective application of justice, and what it means to each individual. Many people would get behind the re-introduction of capital punishment on reactive, emotional (and animalistic) grounds, people see different crimes as serious and different crimes as non-serious, some people believe in an eye for an eye, some people believe in rehabilitation, some people believe in hard labour etc. There does not appear to be, at least as a consensus amongst people, an absolute approach to Justice. Crucially what about being on the receiving end of somebody elses sense of justice? do you accept that the other person has a right or authority to wield power over you? its a very contentious case especially when it comes down to individual situations rather than J.Smith v The State.
To illustrate the above. When it is deemed that something is not acceptable ie Murder, and I think we can all probably agree that cold blooded murder is generally indefensible, then collective society determines that is must be outlawed; like a crappy catchphrase goes hand in hand with modern day British comedy, punishment and illegality are almost inseperable bedfellows.
I only bring this matter up because of the recent debates in the academic circle of what people term ‘Sun Readers’ with view to the restoration of the death penalty as well as continued demands to the cut off the testicles of child offenders, sterilise sections of society that have become undesirable, enforced temporary sterilisation of children in order to combat underage pregnancy. Trust me on this, there are some particularly vile suggestions flying around the nation right now.
Whilst being dragged into Crookhorn I was confronted by the front of the Sun newspaper which displayed a picture of a cold, eyed, thin lipped judge, upon which, like in Stalinist propaganda, a black cap had been superimposed, the headline ran ‘99% of you want this’.
I looked about me at the grey drab afternoon, the decaying buildings and the chip shop turfing out chips and pukka pies to a large collection of overweight and incredibly ugly bunch of young men and women and I’m not too ashamed to admit that I felt an urge to walk into the middle of the road and let the speeding traffic do it’s work.
It was a rather lingering urge, accompianed by a feeling that I just wanted to go away and cry somewhere, perhaps I’m feeling slightly sensitive or something but the whole combination of factors ganged up and overwhelmed me, for a short while I just could not see any positive factor, anywhere.
However now I’m feeling slightly more balanced regarding the situation, having spoken to many fellow students who are dead set against such a barbaric practice being returned I feel a lot better about people in general.
So it comes back to this idea of justice, what exactly is it and how far are we willing to submit ourselves to the power of others? For me, the idea of being at the mercy of others is truly abhorrent, and I understand enough about the legal system to know that it is far from perfect; the very notion that this flawed system could be given powers to Hang me, maim me, torture me, it fills my veins with icy cold fear.
Yet I have not killed anybody, I’m not the secret ‘Liss rapist’ or anything so why should I be so afraid of barbaric powers of medieval persusaion being granted to the authorities. after all I’m one of these people who has ‘nothing (apparantly) to hide’
For a start I’ve no intention of standing by and letting this nation revert to practices that would put the Witchfinder General to shame, I happen to believe in what we might term an unfashionable concept called Human Rights. Furthermore I’m not a fucking savage and I do believe in civilization being the defining achievement of mankind.
The argument goes that the moral grounds for killing are exceptionally tenuous, and that there is a great deal of difference between say shooting dead a madman who descends upon a playground with a machete and the situation whereby said madman is apprehended and then Hanged by judicial order.
The difference lies in the immediate threat of one situation and the contained threat of the latter. An individual who has decided to commit heinous crimes and then has been captured is no longer an immediate threat, the theory goes that our court system then makes a rational, objective decision on the individuals future which hopefully leads to a sentence that is systematically related to the crime, ie Imprisonment.
So to have a suspect in custody and to then decide after trial to kill that individual amounts to nothing more than cold-blooded murder, the definition of such being killing without the pressure of a drastic situation (such as the madman in the playground) he/she has been rendered harmless by their incarceration there is therefore no need to kill them.
So it is not related to prevention of crime, one of the four pillars of the criminal justice system.
Furthermore it is not likely to coincide with rehabilitation, you cannot rehabilitate a corpse, you cannot treat them, you cannot attempt to find out what it was that caused the individual to commit the crime because ta da! They are dead.
Next we come to Deterrance; this is often used as an argument for the reintroduction of the death penalty, it seems to go that people would be too scared to commit crime if there were the possibility of being Hanged as a result. Funnily enough people who argue for the reintroduction of capital punishment tend to placate moderates with the argument that it will only be for the ‘worst of crimes’ and I’ve got to just raise this little point here which goes something like this.
If an individual decides to gun down children in a playground, do you think he is making a rational decision? Is he thinking the situation through and concluding that because the worst the government can do is lock him up for life, he may as well empty a handgun in to a bunch of schoolkids? What is this ’worst of crimes’ anyway? People have differing views, some people say terrorists should be subject to capital punishment, yes because that would have deterred the July 7th bombers wouldn’t it. ‘I’m going to blow myself up on a train…oh hang on…I’ll get hanged, I’d better not do it’ perhaps not.
Yob culture is frequently put down to a lack of fear of punishment, so perhaps some fairness in sentencing may be required but I fail to see where the application of the death penalty applies. Do we hang those people who in groups kick another individual to death? Do we hang them all, or just the ringleaders? Does this constitute the ’worst of crimes’, to me it sounds like the common charge of murder or possibly even manslaughter and so by that logic we’ve got grounds for Hanging anyone found guilty of murder ,which is a pretty wide ranging offense. Where do we draw the line? Technically we could start hanging Hit and Run drivers who would echo the the defense ‘I kicked him in the head but I thought he’d be okay’ with ‘I hit him at 40mph but I thought he’d be okay’ It’s pretty murky territory if you ask me.
To return to the theme, prevention is a pretty poor argument given that ‘the worst of crimes’ are committed by those who are unlikely to be deterred whatever the punishment and that lowering the bar for what constitutes ’worst’ leads to a minefield of legal wrangling.
Additionally it is interesting to note that the death penalty at it’s height in the 18th century was known as the ‘bloody code’ and consisted of 220 different crimes all punishable by death. Did this prevent crime? Well judging by the figures it didn’t prevent a single thing because 35′000 death sentences were handed out and some 7000 people executed between 1770 and 1830. Did the crime rate drop? You can bet your bloodthirsty, black cap hankering copy of the Sun that it didn’t.
So all we seem to be left with is the concept of punishment, which if we’re honest is a pretty primal reason for wanting to reinstate state sponsered murder. Not only is this an emotive reason but it is also a fundamentally flawed reason based upon some kind of literal translation of ‘an eye for an eye’
Firstly the fact that it is emotive and based on nothing but a desire for vengeance removes it’s legal justification. Legal decisions must be made by an objective, rational jury, presented with all available evidence. they are NOT made by people who are acting in a subjective and angry manner.
Secondly this argument of an eye for an eye, when closely examined presents the casual observer with some problems. Given that the state has decided that those people who take the life of another have forfieted their own right to life and as a result executes that individual and given that the state is meant to be the embodiment of the will of the people then the ultimate accountability for the killing of a criminal lies with…the general populace. Complicit in the murder (and yes it is murder, however much you dress it up) of another individual the populace by it’s own logic is therefore responsible for the death and liable to having their life taken. In effect deny the right to life for one person and you may as well deny the right to life for everybody, whatever moral high ground you claimed to have you’ve just lost it. Is there a difference between an individual killing a individual and a state killing an individual? Just the one and that is that in the latter case more people think that the action is justified. Mobocracy rules and murder is fine in one case but not in the other which is an incoherency which can only lead to a loss of center.
Punishments like the death penalty brutalise society as a whole, in condoning the act, we’re complicit in the act, it becomes acceptable and life becomes a commodity that can be taken away with ‘reason’.
Finally I will include a few points that I have taken from the site Capital Punishment U.K; a resource site for the history of capital punishment in Britain.
“There are very real issues of human rights that will effect us all if it were to be reintroduced.
Will the government introduce laws that are just and contain sufficient safeguards and will the judiciary administer them properly?
Can the police, the courts, and the system generally be trusted to get things right on every occasion? They never have been able to previously.
Will juries be willing to convict in capital cases?
Would you like to have to make the decision as to whether the person in the dock should live or die
Will the government really be willing to carry out death sentences or will they find every excuse for not doing so, thus returning to the injustices of earlier centuries”
It eventually comes down to the point that I was rambling on about originally, what is justice? How do we apply it? Justice lies somewhere in our ability to reason and our ability to determine what, within the framework of rights, responsibilities, morality and ethics, is right and what is wrong.
To view murder whether it be by state or individual as an affront to an internal sense of justice is a step towards realisation of our essential humanity, but to ignore it, to see murder and death as a justifiable punishment is to declare oneself capable and righteous in deciding who is worthy of life and who is not. Ultimately such a right is not ours to take, perhaps it is the right only of death itself but certainly not ours.
