Craziness, judicial style!

Come on in and enjoy the fire. Brought some eggs with me today, and some green onions and turkey and plan on making up some really tasty scrambled eggs, how many you want? Two, three?

So a friend of mine did one of his 'I'm busy talk about these subjects' posts. And we weighed in and of course, when the talk is of justice, I tend to go my own way compared to a lot of folks. It's because I have a hard time seeing the point of what we do now and how it is of any help or use to society in general. Anyways, go check out that post, come back here, your eggs will be ready by then, and we'll dive into this idea of my perfect 'jail.' So to speak.

First off there are a lot of different styles of justice.  Right now in Canada we use a mixture of punitive and corrective justice.  The idea's when mixed are kind of strange and send mixed signals and for the most part, I don't find that either really works.  The reason they don't work is not because they are necessarily wrong, or completely ineffective but because they are completely removed from the events which caused the incarceration.

So if they don't work because of their separation, what do I advocate?  Restorative justice.  What exactly is restorative justice?  Justice based on the ideal that the individual who committed the crime must now restore what was taken or fix the issues created by the crime.  It means direct involvement by the criminal to actively understand and face the issues created by their crime.

There's a lot more details to work out but here's how my 'ideal' jail would work.  First off, it wouldn't be a jail, it would not be some place just to incarcerate individuals as punishment.  I'm sure we can mostly agree that punitive justice doesn't work for the most part.  I would rather have a remote compound that was set up more like a university.  But that's getting ahead of the overall concept so let's take a step back.

First off, the trial process, that makes sense.  But I think as part of the sentencing I would incorporate a much further application of victim's impact and I would make the victims an active part of the process, where they could speak to the complete nature of how the crime affected them, and would have a hand in setting certain marker posts that would make them feel that the crime was made up for.  Those limits are not necessarily monetary, but wouldn't preclude them. 

But the biggest part of this would be multiple encounters that would make the criminal fully understand and face the impact of the crime in an ongoing and comprehensive way.  To fully participate in this idea you have to understand what you did and how far reaching the effects of crime can be.  And then actively come up with ways in which you can attempt to rectify the situation.

So here's the deal, the person is guilty of their crime, and they face their victim(s) and are sent off to this complex that is fairly remote.  And the length of their sentence is 'until they feel comfortable back in society.'

And here is where I get all the 'whuuuuuuuaaaaaaat's?  Yeah, different right?  OK let me explain this part. 

You have to participate in the standard assessments of skills and abilities as well as profiles in both medical and mental health, as well as stay long enough for on going meetings with the victim(s) of the crime.  After that you are given a space in the complex to sleep and are given any opportunity you have to help yourself with the same programs available to the general public.  Obviously there will be suggestions for future endeavors and counselling but the main thing here is to explore yourself and your situation and how you got to be where you are. 

The place will have a basic farm where they will explore different complimentary growing methods, and different workshops to keep the farm running as well as teach those skills, and everyone will receive a taxable wage for the work they are performing.  They will be expected to pay room and board from their wages, and in general the only real difference between being at the complex, and being out in the 'normal' world will be the general remoteness and the availability of counselling opportunities so the individual can come to terms with themselves and learn to fix the problems they create.  This is of course including dealing with continual sessions with the victim to ensure that the situation is restored. 

You can leave at anytime.  With the understanding that continued violation of other people's rights will result in your being shipped off to an island up north to help solidify Canada's claim on it.  this should not be viewed as a threat to you, it is more an aspect of society protecting itself from those that choose to not play well with others. 

That's my crazy perfect jail, in a thumbnail sketch that requires a lot more definition and overall thought but that's the general premise.  Poke holes at will.