The Strengths And Weaknesses Of The State-Base Justice System

Introduction

At the age of 12, three months after my immunity from the law ended, I committed a dreadful crime. On a winter night while Burnaby was sound sleep underneath a blanket of snow, I used my mighty hands to grab a handful of snow and threw it at my neighbor 's door. Thankfully, my neighbor did not report me to the police who would have charged me with mischief according to section 430(1)(a) and had me sentenced to life imprisonment (430(b)). Luckily, my neighbor took pity on my poor soul and merely asked for an apology.

This experience taught me three valuable lessons, the first being I should run away after throwing a snowball, an important skill that I still use today. Secondly, we handled the situation informally and the results

Most major developed countries currently use a state-base justice system, which means that the state or the government will handle and deal with issues that arises between two conflicting parties (Diamond). The state-base justice system also has several mandates, the main being to protect the citizens by locking up the high-risk offenders and by punishing the offenders (Kurlychek, 2011, p.909). They do this by incorporating ideas from deterrence theory (Tibettes & Hemmes,

So in order for a punishment to be truly effective, the offender must consider it to be legitimate and thus they must acknowledge their wrongdoing. Furthermore, there must exists a social bond between the state and the offender and more importantly, the offender must be genuinely sorry and seek forgiveness (Sherman, 1993). In other words, according to Wenzel, Okimoto, Feather, and Platow 's article, the offender must accept the punishment (2008). Lastly, the state is responsible for rehabilitating and repairing any harm down (Kurlychek, 2011,