Essay On Justice In The Crime Story

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The notion of justice tends to be correlated with crime itself, as when a crime occurs, there is an inherent need to react with a response that most would find just. Whether it be the criminal justice system, the victim, the community, or even the wrongdoer, there is a need for justice. Thus, this essay will divulge into a discussion of justice through the use of a crime story in British Columbia (B.C.), in order to facilitate as to what truly can be said to be justice. To accomplish the task at hand, I shall; firstly, define justice, secondly, detail the crime story, thirdly, garner into a discussion of the crime story, fourthly, discuss justice, and lastly, provide a letter to the editor of the crime story. By the end, there will be some …show more content…

Justice has a variety of meanings from a variety of people (Elliott, 2011, pg. 47-52). Justice can refer to revenge, it can refer to the treatment of people in a manner that would constitute as equal, or it can be to give anyone their due (Elliott, 2011, pg. 47-48). Nonetheless, for the sake of relevancy, justice in relation to punishment will only be considered (Elliott, 2011, pg. 52). The reason for this is due to the fact that this essay will discuss a crime story, and the tendency is to believe that a just response to crime would be punishment. For instance, according to George Herbert Mead (1918: 582), justice can be sought through conviction and punishment (1918: 582); therefore, conviction and then punishment such as incarceration can equate to …show more content…

In a sense, this notion of the police now seeking justice on behalf of the family is alike to Nils Christie (1977) notion of professional thieves (pg. 3); referring to individuals who “steal conflict” from us (Abramson, 2018, Lecture on Justice). Therefore, in this crime story, the VPD will now steal the conflict from the family and seek justice on their behalf, but a problem arises from this, as it does not allow for victim to participate in the process of justice, rather it may alienate the family and the wrongdoers further (Abramson, 2018, Lecture on Justice). Nonetheless, there is one more type of justice available that I believe would be more valuable; the Indigenous perspective of justice of restoring (Abramson, 2018, Lecture on Justice). For the current incident, restoring will be a difficult task due to the involvement of gang members; however, perhaps they could be willing to participate in the restoration of peace by not meeting with the ones they have harmed, but by doing something such as attempting to prevent this act from occurring

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