and justice for all...

The Preamble: My wife and I love to watch Law & Order. It's a highly predictable crime drama that wraps itself up neatly at the end of every episode. While it uses many current events and values debates as a backdrop for episode plots, the show allows us to put our minds on autopilot for an hour. Very rarely does it provide any kind of intellectual stimulation for either of us. But it's good entertainment. A lot of times I wish the world could be as simple as a network TV drama - especially when it comes to our justice system. Bad guys are bad guys, good guys are good guys, the world always comes back together in the end, everyone goes home happy and gets what's fair. That's the Law & Order way (more or less) but it is not, at all, a fair representation of reality.

When I look at the commonly shared concept of justice in western culture, what I see is a system that it has become so focused on crime and punishment (and law and order) that any real presence of justice is hidden by layers of vengeance and retribution. I once said that not all ideologies are words that end in "ism", and the American system of "justice" is one of them. As an ideology, it stands as another obstacle on the path to finding objective reality.

The Case: It was once said that "there is a way that seems right to mankind, but in the end that path only leads to death."* There should be no doubt that this much could be said of our entire social fabric and especially of our concept of "justice". The foundation of our entire society is completely incompatible with a real environment of justice. From start to finish the American system is overrun by the protection of self-interests, even at the expense and exploitation of others. And in a social environment where self-interests are the penultimate reality to be chased, we encourage people to get the best that they can, even if it means doing their worst. The evolution of this kind of a society - which is seen in every corner of the world, but celebrated so much in America - has created two opposing groups: the "haves" and the "have-nots", with anyone still in-between slowly being pushed into one of the two camps. By elevating the protection of the privacy of person, private ownership of property, and personal rights to the level of "sacred", we've ultimately forced the "have-nots" to fend for themselves by way of some kind of merciless experiment in "Social Darwinism". So many of us have no substantial qualms with the reality that there are those in our own cities and neighborhoods that have become so weighed down by this system that they are a mere step or two away from choosing between crime and utter poverty and improvision. And this is nothing new to us either - it's as old as life itself. Yet in all of our advancement, all of our sophistication, all of our technology, all of our collective global wealth, we - all of us - prefer to spend our time and resources terminating on our selves.

So I hear you say to me: "Hey! Thanks for proving you're a clone of Karl Marx, but what does this have to do with the injustice of human justice?" You'll be surprised to know that in all of my historical studies, all of my reading, all of my free time I've never read anything written by Marx - not even the Communist Manifesto. But what I'm talking about has everything do with human justice. William Boothe, founder of the Salvation Army, wrote a brilliant work called In Darkest England and the Way Out that detailed the horrible living conditions of the poor in London and the connection between poverty and crime. Booth's main argument is that a man's soul (and his "eternal salvation") is completely unattainable in the midst of extreme poverty and squalor. In order to attain the salvation of the soul the missionary must also provide for the "salvation of the body."** But, of course, proselytizing and "salvation" is not the aim of this current discussion. Where Booth's argument and my own converge is when Booth acknowledges that many of the rich London residents were not willing to give up their money to fund the Salvation Army in order to achieve something as practically worthless as salvation of the soul. He presents a case that suits their needs when makes the claim that as the rich are able to help the poor meet their own needs and as they begin to help the "inner man as well as the outer man", the amount of crime in London would be sure to decrease. To Booth the choice was a very clear one: those Englishmen with resources (i.e. money and time) could use them to improve the condition of the impoverished and, in the long run, help prevent crime against all Englishmen (especially the wealthy and middle-class) or they could continue to horde their money, live in luxury, and ignore the plight of the poor - and then pay the government in tax money to execute a robust and expensive "criminal justice" and prison system to house those same people after they've violated someone.

It should be said that not all crime is derived from being oppressed and desperation. Even crime for those reasons is not based, ultimately, on just that. Crime happens whenever anyone elevates the self interest above or ahead of the good of those affected by one's circle of influence. But that is only criminality. Let's move on to justice. Let me say first that there are two different ideas about justice in our world: social justice and criminal justice. What Booth was trying to encourage his audience and neighbors was that there was a very ancient belief that the more generously a society invested in social justice, the more insulation that society is providing for itself against the need for a robust and expensive criminal justice system. What should also be mentioned is that the ancient world considered - in large part - the practice of elevating the private (or "self") interests before the public good as a complete lack of virtue.*** What's more is that even the definition of "justice" seems to have very little (if anything at all) to do with the concepts of crime and punishment. In nearly 84% of the passages in the Bible where the word "justice" is given a contextual meaning there is a very explicit definition: to tend to the needs of the poor the orphan and the widow, to be fair to the foreigner ("alien"), and to restore those that have been victimized (by man or by nature).****

And that is the truth of justice. Justice is not punishing the "violator of rights", it is reclaiming our responsibility to the poor, the foreigner in our land, and the victim of loss. In fairness to the reality we live in - financial poverty isn't the only criteria for a "victim of loss". A wealthy woman that is violated feels the same pain as the homeless women suffering the same violation. The reason I make such an argument for the poor is because too often they lack the resources to bring about the restoration necessary to completely heal. And that is the business of justice: healing and restoration. Anything less than this is simply reaction, revenge, and retribution. And this, of course, presents a problem for all of us. If any of us come to embrace this reality and reclaim this ancient axiom of justice, how can we ever hope to convert the substantial investment we've made over the millennia of emotion, money, laws, careers, and infrastructure in "crime and punishment" to a new system of justice? Do we stand up and fight a government that is legitimized by this current system? Do we overthrow it? No. Do we ignore the laws? No. Do we quit our jobs as police, corrections officers, wardens and judges? Not until they are made unnecessary, no. In the wise counsel of Dallas Willard: no need to fight it, just don't feed it.+

But how, then, do we create a new system? The answer is both comforting and terrifying at the same time: there is no need for any of us to build it, rather what is required of us is simply to be it. Like all movements that generate a lasting legacy, it starts with one or a few and spreads - like a virus - from one to the next until it grows so vast and powerful that it replaces and suffocates the original organism, rendering a new manifestation of the body. All that is required to create the change we desperately need is simply to be the change, and let that change influence (just like the influenza virus) everyone you come into contact with. There is no need to dominate with new laws or systems. There is no need to force a new way of thinking on those who aren't ready to see it - or those that have built a brick wall of dogmatic immunity to it.

If we, together as a community, can begin to sacrifice our self-centered needs for luxury in order to give to the poor, to sacrifice our selfish alienation of "foreigners" (as if any of us live in the exact place of our own births?) in order to practice generosity and hospitality to the immigrant, and to sacrifice our self-righteous need for retribution against the "offender" and the "criminal" in order to restore to wholeness the ones that suffer from loss, then we can transform our dark and miserable immitation of justice for true justice - a justice that is far less susceptible to perversion and corruption. A justice based on truth, responsibility (for ourselves and to others), and compassion instead a mockery of justice based on ideology, rights, and selfishness. It may look like donating blood, volunteering time at homeless shelters and food pantries, giving money, organizing benefits... take your pick or think of your own. But, in the end, the beginning of all justice is to care. Simply allow yourself to care about injustice and the plight of those losing hope around you. Let that compassion - and, yes, even grief - motivate you to act. Someone you know is hoping and praying for a miracle... a sign. We can be that sign. We can be that miracle. We can become justice for someone. Let the law judge the lawless and the lawful. Let the judges debate crime and punishment. But let the just be the justice that reality demands of all of us.

The Question: Are you, the reader, able to see the distinction between our system of "crime and punishment" (which we may call "crime management") and the ancient concept of justice? Are you willing to trade your personal vested interest in the current system for a new one? If there was a reason that would hold you back from being the change in order to create the change, which would you say is the primary one: the personal cost of change, being overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenge, or rejecting the validity of the concept outlined in this post? And, lastly, with the absolute failure of the human "crime management system" to prevent or rehabilitate criminal activity++... what more do you have to lose?

Leave the light on.

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* - Proverbs 14:12, Proverbs 16:25
** - James 2:16
*** - Reference Plato and Socrates
**** - Examples: Deuteronomy 16:20, Deuteronomy 27:19, Proverbs 21:3, Ecclesiastes 5:8, Isaiah 1:16-17, Isaiah 10:2, Isaiah 59:15, Ezekiel 22:23-31, Ezekiel 49:5, Micah 6:8, Zechariah 7:9, Matthew 23:23
+ - The Great Omission, Dallas Willard
++ - Based on felony recidivism statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Justice