Justice is such a large ethical term. It revolves around certain principles like fairness or equality that also need definitions on their own. For our discussion on justice, I want to discuss justice in relation to punishment. Why do many Americans believe capital punishment is just?
The classic “eye for an eye” view on punishment is called retributive justice. It holds that the offender suffering in proportion to the offense they committed is just. Even supporters of retributive justice reject its application everywhere. The punishment for a rapist, for example, is not that the state in turn rapes them. To most that seems cruel and unusual. But executing a murder because they murdered seems to provide justice to the offended.
It's hard to quantify suffering. Maybe in a flawless justice system a murder could be instantly proven guilty after they kill and get executed the day after their crime. But we will never have a flawless system. Instead, we have people on death row for decades, botched executions, and many cases of innocent people sentenced to death. Above all, retributive justice still violates the human right to life. I like the USCCB’s concise assessment of capital punishment as “cruel, unnecessary, and arbitrary.”
Maybe one thinks the death penalty is cruel but accepts it because of the benefits that it might bring in deterring others from committing the same crime. This is the “setting an example” type of justice. The Death Penalty Information Center says there is no solid answer to whether or not capital punishment deters crime. Even if there was, however, would it be just? If the government violates a human right for the sake of the rest of society, consider the slippery slope of potential right violations that follow.
That brings us to what to do with a capital offender if we don't want to execute them. One option is rehabilitation, where instead of the state sentencing the offender to death, they will instead help heal him from the place they were in when they committed such a horrific crime. Many oppose this form of justice because they do not see murderers as in need of help. For some it seems wrong that their tax dollars go to therapy sessions for murderers. But what Jesus emphasized repeatedly in his ministry was his dedication to helping those who were the worst off in his community. A murder may not have the worst physical, mental, or socioeconomic circumstances, but I cannot think of someone more spiritually damaged than a murderer. I think it would be more just to try to heal him than kill him.
Now we know many of the traditional approaches to justice in punishment. There is one more type of justice that has gained popularity recently and might be the best fit from a Catholic perspective: restorative justice. We’ll talk about it next week.
Further Reading:
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