Justice?

One of the many definitions the word justice is “the moral principle determining just conduct”. This week episode of Black Mirror, White Bear, there were executing the punishment for Victoria, an accomplice in a little girl’s abduction and murder. Would you call a punishment were the guilty doesn’t know they’re being punished justice? Is making Victoria go through the exact same scenarios her victim experienced just? It is safe to say that punishment or just punishment is for the victim, not the perpetrator. Punishment is to give the victim and his or her family some kind of peace; to let them know that the criminal can’t get away with his or her crime.  Would you as a victim or a family member, in good conscious, knowing that the roles are reversed, that you are now inflicting the same exact type of pain on someone else?

I have always believed that just punishment, those that are determined after a trial, is a halfway house for victims to forgive their attacker. A sort of way were the innocent can say that the culprit made them feel weak will suffer. A prison sentence will inflict suffering on the criminal. In addition, it will ruin a great possibility of them getting their normal life back or to better their life. (Disclaimer: I have been blessed to never have suffered an attack by another person) The damage that attackers, abductors, rapists, murderers, and all criminals inflict on their victims is unexplainable; nobody can downplay their emotions. Prison is not a fun place, there are countless documentaries on how horrible it is for the inmates but in no way am I saying that it measures to the action that got them sentenced in the first place. But, the victim can find peace knowing that they’re going away for a long period of time to one of the worst possible places in this country. Now forgiving an attacker, abductor, rapists, or murderer is extremely difficult and only the best type of people may do so. Physical wounds can heal but the emotional ones can take up to a lifetime to do so.

But in the mist of searching for a way to find justice people fall in revenge and resentment. This is exactly what happened in White Bear. Victoria’s punishment wasn’t a punishment it was revenge. The jury decided that an eye for an eye was better than to make her see the error of her actions. Victoria claimed in her trial that she was under the spell of her boyfriend who actually committed the actions while she recorded them. Her boyfriend killed himself after he did the same thing to the little girl. The people in the film couldn’t get over the fact that Victoria dint do anything to save the girl therefore they put her in the same helpless position as the girl. This is not right. It’s cruel and unusual punishment and it’s unconstitutional.

Crime and punishment are tricky subjects to discuss because, how can you regulate people’s emotion and still keep a social order? The victims need justice, need to feel that they're taken care of. The criminals need to be treated like people, because they are. But at what point do the people giving the unjust punishment stay on the good side of the battle? In no way am I excusing Victoria if her crime, but I do empathize with how she is being treated.