There are no longer any courts of justice or of justice meted for the wrong done or presumed to be done. Instead, we have courts of law which try and convict based on the prevalent laws. Upon conviction, the concept of justice does not arise, instead, laws are followed on what punitive measures are to be followed (Reiman & Leighton, 2004). When two people enter into a civil contract and something goes wrong, no reference to justice is ever made. Instead, there are laws that have been put in place to be followed in every conceivable scenario. The law enforcement officers and the courts will, therefore, not do what needs to be done but rather, what the law says must be done. This makes the law the modern replacement for justice, thus begging the question of whether there is any justice in the laws. This question will form an important aspect of the instant essay. Secondly, the masses, commonly referred to as the people, as well as individuals react differently to the law. These reactions have changed as the laws have progressed. What these reactions are and what informs the will also make an integral element of the instant essay.
The Law is Not Justice Today and Perhaps Never Was
Aggravated robbery today attracts the death sentence in many states (Galanter, 2014). A man who is starving breaks into a home scavenging for food and unfortunately the homeowner hears him. The desperate man either stands his ground or defend himself and beats up the homeowner, resulting in the success of the stealing expedition. It is easy for this hungry man to be sentenced to life or in some cases even to death. Hypothetically, this man and his family are hungry because his employer closed down due to misappropriation of funds and corruption. Thousands of employees lost their jobs, homes and medical covers and as a result, hundreds of them are dead and thousands destitute. The management of the corrupt company has never been charged and most of them managed to secure other jobs. Some of them even started a similar company in another state. If there was any justice, then it would require that every person answer for their crimes according to the proportion of those crimes (Reiman & Leighton, 2004). Under traditional laws, a man would be tortured to get a confession then punished based on the same confession. This would make the judge more of a criminal than the crime being tried, in the eyes of justice, yet in the eyes of the law, all was well and due procedure as being done. From these days of torture and barbarism, a lot has changed with adjustments in the procedure as well as punishment. However, the changes never turned the law into an instrument of justice. It also clearly seems that the laws might never bring justice to the world (Reiman & Leighton, 2004).
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Where do the Laws Come From
Laws were traditionally developed passively as a means for the society to live in cohesion. They were simply definitions of what was right and what was wrong. With time, it was realized that having a law in itself did not ensure that it was followed. This led to the development of punitive measures to ensure that rules are followed. These punitive measures ended up becoming a source of unity in the society and in some parts of the world, even a source of entertainment. Indeed, lawbreakers would be saved up for the next major festival where they would be publicly chastised. As society grew, a form of aristocracy or ruling class began to develop too. The ruling classes would use the instruments available in the society to solidify their position in leadership and also keep commoners in check (Reiman & Leighton, 2004). The important institution of crime and punishment based on the law was very attractive to these ruling classes and they quickly adopted them to suit their ends. Laws were then developed geared toward the achievement of a certain end which had nothing to do with justice. In many cases, laws became an aversion to the process of justice itself, a concept that remains in existence today.
Modern laws development are made up of three important steps. The first is the formative stage that is premised on government policy (Mason & Stephenson, 2015). Government policy with regard to laws is mainly developed by the presidency in conjunction with the highest levels of leadership. This is the epitome of the ruling class. The policy is then developed into actual laws by the legislature. The legislature is another group of ruling class members who are supposed to be representative of the people but in practice seek to rule. The final step lies in law enforcement which includes the judiciary (Mason & Stephenson, 2015). These are technocrats who also form part of the ruling classes and whose existence create more fear than comfort among the common populace. The culmination of the foregoing is that the laws indeed are developed by ruling classes even in the most accomplished democracies. Therefore, the ruling classes are still using laws to superintend over the masses making laws an instrument of subjugation and not that of justice. Indeed, whenever an aspect of the law is mentioned, the majority feels more threatened than protected but the minority who happen to be among the affluent ruling class feel protected rather than threatened.
In practical application, the law favors the rich and condemns the poor. Indeed, the rich are always getting away with their crimes even as the poor suffer for crimes they never committed. One of the most unfair elements of the law is how selective it is when it comes to crimes. The aforementioned example of a hungry thief getting a harsh sentence while the massive embezzlers whose acts have killed millions is a common example. Another prominent example is kindred to substance abuse in America. Crack Cocaine is a poor man’s drug and attracts a massive sentence (Galanter, 2014). Yet, the main issue of drug abuse in America is based on opioid abuse, a rich man’s drug whose abuse attracts but a light sentence. This is a clear example of laws, developed to aid the rich and punish the poor. The criminal procedure also falls within this category. A rich man can get himself a barrage of lawyers who will place numerous barriers in the path of law enforcement (Reiman & Leighton, 2004). A criminal case against a rich person can spend years in discovery and eventually fall on a technicality. A poor person, facing the very same charges might be convicted in record time and given harsh sentences. The law, therefore, makes the rich and the ruling classes feel powerful while continually reminding the poor how weak they are. This enables the ruling classes to maintain a stranglehold on nations.
Can it be said that the Search for Justice has been Replacing by an Attempt for Rehabilitation
Traditionally, when a law has been broken, the search for justice included attempts towards retribution, restitution, reparation, and incapacitation. A common modern perspective is that the law has grown benign and geared towards helping lawbreakers revert to being good citizens once again. This is more so pegged to the elimination of punitive punishments such as the death sentence, corporal punishment, and other harsh punishments under the ‘an eye for an eye’ principle (Miethe & Lu, N.d). Therefore, when members of the community get thrown into jailhouses in droves, then the intent is to rehabilitate rather than to punish them. In fact traditionally, the jailhouse was merely a point of transition. Accused persons would be placed in jail pending trial and convicts would be placed in jail pending carrying out of sentences. Now jail has been transformed into the actual sentence under the guise of rehabilitation. If this is the intent of modern laws, then it is clear from its outcomes that it has more than failed (Miethe & Lu, N.d). Recidivism is currently at an all-time high with jails acting as conveyor belts where criminals return again and again upon release for committing other offenses. Indeed, research has shown that jailing contributes to the exacerbation of criminal tendencies instead of extenuation thereon. Juveniles who end up in jail will more often than not spend most of their adult lives in jails. Therefore, jails exist to punish and not to rehabilitate in spite of the guises that the ruling class put forth. Today, just as in former times, laws are being used to suit the whims, wishes, and ideologies of the ruling class, not justice.
Responses to Laws
There are two possible responses to the law; the individual response and the mass response to the law. Traditionally, the concept of mass reaction to the law and the execution of the law was a good indicator of the standing of the ruling class in the eyes of the commoners. If the masses appeared for an execution in a festive mood, cheering on the executioner and jeering at the hapless convict, the ruling class would know that they are in favor (Jacoby, 2004). In some instances, however, the masses would appear at the execution area armed and hostile. This would be an adverse reaction to the law and an indication that the law needs to be changed or the ruling class will lose the masses. It is based on such reactions that extreme sentences were eliminated and replaced with prison sentences. This led to a commencement of individual reactions to the law although mass adverse reactions to the law still exist. A common example is the American concept of shoplifting. Individuals who can afford merchandise have been found to be among the leading shoplifters purely as a means of reacting to the law (Gustafson, 2016). However, they cannot be said to be reacting to the law per se but rather to the ruling class itself. Among individual reaction to the law include self-immolation and self-mutilation when held behind bars (Grooves, 2004). There has been a misconception that these acts of self-harm are premised on remorse for the crimes committed leading to the conclusion that the rehabilitative approach of prison sentences is effective. However, a careful analysis of the same will show it to be a fallacy. Prisoners do not hurt themselves because the law works but rather as a reaction to the law and the ruling class effecting it. They harm themselves to spite the system just as some prisoners result to worse crimes upon release. These modern adverse reactions to the law, just as the traditional ones are a message to the ruling class that the masses are not fooled by the existence of an application of the laws. The masses understand that the laws exist to create a better world for the rich and the poor are willing to contest the same, even if it costs them immense pain or loss of life.
Conclusion
Laws came into being as societies formed into organized groups. As these groups got larger and more organized so did the laws. They were, however, hijacked by the ruling classes so that instead of the members of the societies setting laws, it is the ruling classes who do. In modern times, it is the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary who create and implement laws. It is also clear from the above that these laws have not been made to meet the ends of justice and in many cases, they perpetrate massive injustices. Many of these injustices are geared towards favoring and protecting the rich as well as subjugating the poor. From the traditional law enforcement that included torture and acts of barbarism to the modern concept that entails prison sentences and complex criminal procedure, the laws almost always work well for the rich and against the poor. Their development, design, and application adhere to the wishes and ideals of the ruling class. Reactions by the populace against the law clearly indicate that the masses are not fooled by the intent of the rich through the processes of laws.
References
Galanter, M. (2014). Why the haves come out ahead: The classic essay and new observations (Vol. 23). New Orleans, LA: Quid Pro Books
Groves, A. (2004). Blood on the Walls: Self-mutilation in Prisons. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 37 (1), 49-64. doi:10.1375/acri.37.1.49
Gustafson, S. (2016). What shoplifting millennials teach us about anti-capitalist attitudes? Retrieved from http://www.aei.org/publication/what-shoplifting-millennials-teach-us-about-anti-capitalist-attitudes/
Jacoby, J. E. (2004). Classics of criminology (3rd Ed.). Long Grove: Waveland.
Mason, A. T., & Stephenson, G. (2015). American constitutional law: introductory essays and selected cases . New York: Routledge
Mears, D. P., Cochran, J. C., Bales, W. D., & Bhati, A. S. (2016). Recidivism and Time Served in Prison. J. Crim. L. & Criminology , 106 , 81-122 (Mears et al, 2016)
Miethe, T. D., & Lu, H. (n.d.). Punishment Philosophies and Types of Sanctions. Punishment, 15-49. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511813801.003
Reiman, J., & Leighton, P. (2004). The rich get richer and the poor get prison: Ideology, class, and criminal justice . In Crime control in America: nothing succeeds like failure (pp. 11-54). New York: Routledge.
