Rehabilitation as a Fundamental Element of a Justice System

It has been important for me, in our discussion, to remind myself that there is a definite difference between the theories or ideal societies we are discussing and what aspects of those are applicable in reality. I may be bordering on idealism in this post, but I think it could be really impactful to try out this idea.

During our symposia, the question of retribution versus rehabilitation in terms of rectificatory justice was discussed a lot. Which really is more valuable in amending an injustice? Well, I think it depends on the type of injustice done. More specifically, I think it depends on whether or not the victim of the injustice (the person in the deficiency zone of the scale) has had something taken away that can actually be returned. In our discussion, we headed in this direction a bit, but I think it is important to consider rehabilitation for the victim as a factor for restoring justice. Our justice system surrounds addressing the facillitator of the injustice. This is done through punishments like jail or fines, and certainly should be done, and sometimes is, though I think not directly through our justice system, through rehabilitation like group or individual therapy. Punishment is a good preventative measure, and can be effective with the people who actually go through it, but the facillitator of the injustice would gain more from his experience of whatever punishment through rehabilitation. Understanding what made an action wrong would certainly prevent the person from committing that wrong and maybe even similar wrongs again (unless the person were a psychopath, obviously). But, for many crimes, if we only address that side of the issue, justice cannot have really been restored. Even if I've only had a sweater stolen from me, then returned, maybe I am disconcerted about that. I, as the victim, should have the chance to address my feelings regarding the crime done against me. This is admittedly over the top, but at least restoration of justice would be greater. Not perfect, but greater. But what about for a victim of rape? There is a lot of physical and emotional damage done to a rape victim, certainly enough to make therapy a reasonable option, but many rape victims are afraid or ashamed to go to therapy. If therapy or rehabilitation were already a part of the justice system, for both the facillitator and victim of an injustice, then each side of the justice equation could be addressed. As I said before, the necessity of rehabilitation does depend on the injustice done, but we cannot run our justice system like that. We would probably have to implement it all or nothing. If we could make it conditional, it would probably be implemented in specifically violent crimes before any others. It would obviously take a lot of planning and effort, but I think it could make a difference in the efficacy of our justice system.