Justice is an important element of any society. No society can survive for very long if its members don’t have a sense of being treated fairly. Justice helps to ensure that if one person or group abuses another that the abuser will be stopped, and some sense of balance restored. The essential function of government is to provide for justice. This is done through legislation to establish just rules, through law enforcement, through the courts and eventually through some form of “corrections”. To a large extent the effectiveness of any government is judged on its ability to provide a reasonable degree of justice for its people. When justice can be achieved, people have faith in their social institutions. They feel relatively safe and supported by those institutions.
When a community’s social institutions are unable to achieve justice for the people, then there is a loss of faith in the social institutions. This leads to conflict and chaos, as people seek justice on their own. There were riots in several US cities in 2016 that resulted from frustration over the killing of Black citizens by police officers. Few of these killings appeared to be justified but in almost every case the legal system allowed the officers to get away unpunished. Many saw this as a fundamental failure of the justice system to provide for all citizens.
This first type of justice is referred to as distributive justice. It focuses on how the resources in a community and among communities are shared in a fair and reasonable manner. The bottom line regarding distributive justice is that everyone is treated fairly and with respect. However, fairness can be perceived differently by different people and cultures. Some cultures stress personal achievement, so that a person can amass vast amounts of wealth while many in the community are suffering and dying for lack of basic necessities. In such cultures this is perceived as fair because the wealthy earned (or inherited) that wealth, so it belongs to them. It would be unfair to take what they own away from them, according to this perspective. Other cultures stress the communal responsibility that people have to the society and the need to share their excess wealth, so that the poorest and most vulnerable people at least have access to basic resources.
The first group sees fairness in keeping your property to yourself because you earned it. You may see to the need of the poor through charity, but the government should not coerce you into sharing your wealth. The second group sees fairness in sharing, even if the government has to step in to help organize that sharing, as the wealth that was amassed was earned by the individual alone but was the fruit of the labor of a great many people, as well as the social institutions that provided a context for its amassing.
Procedural justice refers to the rules by which a legal system attempts to treat everyone fairly. How can the social institutions of a society provide for fair treatment among its members? At a practical level these are the rules and jurisprudence a court uses in making decisions. What are the steps that must be gone through in determining if someone is guilty of a crime or has liability for some action that harmed another? What are the rights of the accused in this process? What evidence must be produced to prove guilt or liability? The specifics of the rules can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but the bottom line in any legal system is that the rules must provide for the fair and equal treatment of everyone before the law. If people feel that the procedures are fair and being followed, even if they may not agree with the outcome, they will accept the results as reflecting some degree of justice. If the procedures are skewed in favor of a particular social class or group, then there is discontent. If procedures are not followed, then there is discontent.
Restorative justice attempts to put a situation back in balance. When an injustice is done, the balance of right and wrong in a community is upset. If a young man is killed, a life is lost, and the peace and happiness of his family is destroyed. The well-being of the victim’s family and the larger community is unbalanced. If justice is to be done, balance must be restored in some way.
One way to restore the balance is through retributive justice. In this approach, if someone takes the life of another, then his life is forfeit. The balance is restored by doing to the offender what he did to the victim. Related to this is making the offender pay restitution to the victims to cover medical expenses, lost wages, and similar expenses the resulted from being victimized by the offender.
Similar to retribution is the idea of deterrence. In this approach the goal is not only to restore balance but to provide a sentence that is severe enough to deter the possible offender from committing the crime. Thus, in some Islamic countries the serial thief can expect to have a hand cut off at some point. Not only does the sentence prevent the thief from continuing his thievery but it is of such severity that it is meant to deter the possible offender from stealing.
In smaller and more traditional communities the emphasis isn’t so much on the broad principles of justice or the effectiveness of a society’s social institutions. Rather, the concern is for the people in a small community to live together in relative peace, even after a great tragedy has occurred. So, if a young man is killed when two drunken youths get into a fight, rather than kill the offender to restore balance, the village leadership may require that the offender meet the obligations that had been the responsibility of the young man that was killed. The offender would have to fish and provide food for the dead young man’s family and parents. He would have to help with repairs to the dead young man’s home. He would restore balance by seeing that those who depended on the young man who was killed were supported. The pain of the loss of the young man would not be balanced but the survival needs for those who relied upon him would be addressed. In many such cases this approach helped to heal the emotional wound between the families involved, so that instead of being torn apart the village found itself stronger and more united over time.