Restorative (In)justice

 At the American Thinker today, Mike McDaniel in a post entitled Restorative justice breaks real justice explains the consequences of the "defund the police" movement. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is this: when justice breaks down, we are left with vigilantism. We are thus forced to live by the feud, where might makes right.

Bail is intended not to punish the indigent, but to ensure their appearance in court. Criminals freed without bail have little incentive to show up in court or remain in contact with court-appointed attorneys. Bail is also intended to protect the public against sociopaths and psychopaths, violent predators whose actions and intentions represent a clear and present danger.

What evidence did Judge Anderson have that might convince a reasonable jurist Earnest was no danger to the public? Apparently, none. Anyone staging an ambush to murder their victim presents a compelling case for jail pending trial, and likely up to the 60 years Tennessee law allows for conviction on second degree murder.

An allied reality is jail also protect criminals from their victims and from the public at large. When citizens realize the system they fund, and upon which they rely, for protection against criminals refuses to protect them, they move inexorably toward dispensing it themselves. And why should they not? The police, prosecutors and courts are their invention, wielding their power on loan on condition of good behavior.

Obviously, actual vigilantism can’t be allowed, but refusal to do the duties the public expects can only lead to the public taking back their loaned power. That sort of justice tends to be final indeed.

To get a better handle on what McDaniel is talking about here, one has to remember the theory on which our Constitution and laws are based. God, our Creator, grants to each person a number of rights and powers. In a state of nature we each exercise these individually. But for the sake of the common good, We the People loan some of these to the state. The states in turn lone a limited number of them to the Federal government. One of the powers delegated to the state is the police power, for which we pay taxes. The police are there to protect both the victim and the criminal, so that the courts determine the truth of the case and can mete out punishment for the guilty and perhaps provide closure to the victims. That each of these duties is done imperfectly is a sign that we live in a fallen world. Nonetheless, we cannot allow the imperfection to convince us to give up the whole enterprise. Some justice is better than no justice.

McDaniel gives a good deal of time to discussion of one crime, and frankly, the commission of yet another by a rogue judge, mistakenly applying "restorative justice." But it really is not restorative, for what may or may not have been done to this individuals ancestors 200 years ago has no bearing on the crimes he is charged with today. It is, in the end, a phony theory to wreak havoc on society and must be crushed along with the rest of the Democrat/communist/socialist agenda.