Justice

There are two forms of justice when a person commits a crime, which is punishment and rehabilitation. Punishment is just a form of vengeance. Punishment has no space for second chances or for forgiveness. Blame is justifiable because there is no way of fixing the harm they have done. Punishment in some cases can be viewed as torture because it dehumanizes both the punisher and the punished to a point where neither one can see each other as people. This punishment can become enjoyable. Some people might even profit from this thirst for vengeance. The problem with punishment is that there is no real solution. There is no knowing if a person has been punished enough. Other people believe that this is why rehab is a solution to this problem. It is a way to give someone a second chance to be better. For the criminal, this might be a bit of hope. They might actually learn their lesson. Victoria is punished repeatedly for recording the crime she committed with her fiance. For her, there is no rehab, only punishment. This form of punishment allows Victoria a temporary sense of remorse. It is temporary because it's only a matter of time before her memory is erased. Once her memory is gone she has no recollection of who she is or what she has done. In my point of view, your choices and the recollection of those choices shape a big part of you. Every time they erased her memory they were erasing a part of the person who recorded the video. I do believe she deserved to be punished but not exactly the way she was punished. By erasing her memory, they were changing the person who was punished. I do believe she was a different person. She did not even remember her fiance. He influenced the choice she made while recording the little girl. I am not saying that this new person is good or bad, what I am saying is that this person has no clear memories to understand why she is being tortured. This new person has no identity, no clear values, and no recollection of her past. The fact that they repeatedly erased her memory and punished her was a bit frightening to me. The people were enjoying watching her suffer. It made me reflect on myself and on the system we live with. The people were being hypocritical by recording her and telling her it was wrong. Yet, at the same time, we punish a murderer with a death sentence. It was a genius way of exaggerating this for the sake of a tv show because you can clearly see in the show what we fail to see in real life. This system is made only for the damnation of those who we believe are guilty. It does not really help the people change or better themselves. I don't know if those people deserve a way to get better through rehab but at the same time I'm afraid I can become like those people recording, following the simple rule to "have fun". It scares me to think of myself like that. That also brings up more questions, like how many opportunities can a person have? Will the person actually change? Will the person cause more harm in trying to change? How can we be sure that the person really has changed? There is no black or white while answering these questions, only gray. The answers are subjective and difficult to answer. It is easier to just punish than to trust that the second chance will be worth it.