Thread: Justice
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Old 2008-04-19, 12:04   Link #5
Slice of Life
eyewitness
 
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Justice means righting wrongs. Civil law typically deals with something like that, with questions like "Who's actually the owner of X" or "With how much money can damage Y be compensated".

The goals of criminal procedures and the following punishment are (or should be) 1. deterrence, 2. 'educating' the criminal, 3. keeping him away from society (in extreme cases). That means their goal is to reduce crime.

A penalty can only be just or unjust in the light of the above not in itself. It must weight the rights of the offender against the rights of people to live in a society as crime-free as possible. In so far it can be unjustly hard or soft. A penalty is not about answering suffering with suffering. It doesn't make anything right that was wrong. That's revenge, not justice.
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