Our Criminal Justice System
Criminal Justice: What does it mean?
I wonder how many unjust decisions, resulting in wrongful convictions, are passed through our Law Courts every year. How many completely innocent people are paying cruel penalties, perhaps with their very lives, for crimes they never even thought of committing?
Who is the sinner?
How many persons have committed crimes against one or more members of the human family and have escaped punished as prescribed by the law courts, because of monetary influence or by a favorable association with certain officials in a high place?
What is justice, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life?
I am reminded that justice can be bought, if the price is right. Jesus, our “Way Shower”, our living example, was according to the written word, bought for “Thirty pieces of silver”.
What is Justice?
We all know that Steven Truscott, an innocent youth, was wrongly sentenced some forty years ago, for a life-term prison sentence. After serving ten years he was proven innocent by a review board and quietly released without a written apology or any compensation to acknowledge the mistake made by the law courts in falsely sentencing him.
Is this Justice?
Someone had to be found guilty because this is Canada with a Justice System of judges and a twelve-person jury. This time, little Steven lacked the right financial support to avoid the punishing that was meant for someone else. I am told here on my Back Forty, that court records actually show many such cases where justice certainly was not done. I believe that Jesus pointed out the less aggressive way, the way of returning good for evil. Make it convenient for they, who have done evil against you to compensate in both a spiritual and in a material way, rendering physical service or the cash equivalent. After all, I believe that we have all sinned, in that we have not followed the letter or the spirit of the laws prescribed for us by our lawmakers.
Many of these laws are contrived by a ruling minority and therefore do not, necessarily engender benevolent consequences. It must be remembered that we are each responsible, in some way at least, for the lives and actions of our brother. This is one of the laws of Nature
So I ask the question. Am I not my brother’s keeper?
Here on my Back Forty, the answer to this question seems obvious.
There now, I have had my say, which is quite matter of fact and truly down to earth.
Let me know what do you think?
Timothy Haystubble (Grass Roots Philosopher)