Justice without Mercy

“There needs to be a punishment”.

“There are consequences for their actions”.

“They need to take responsibility for the choices that they made.”

Justice must not only be blind, but also deaf, for it does not truly reflect these sayings that we were told since childhood. Justice is not that simple.

“Crime and punishment”- it rings throughout my head, it must be a book, or a saying, or some other identifiable adage that I simply cannot remember. My mind must have booted it out because of its irrelevance. As I stare at my book for class, I understand why my mind did not retain the source of that quote. Clearly justice is not as simple as crime and punishment.

Yet, crime and punishment is exactly what we have been sold since the beginning of time. Since the beginnings of time-outs, of spankings, of “no dessert since you didn’t eat your vegetables”. Crime = punishment. You do the crime, you pay the time. Instant childhood connection: avoid crime, avoid punishment. No. It is not that simple. Prisons are full of people who did not commit the very crimes they are convicted of, and many people who commit crimes walk free. It is not a fair exchange. It is not crime and punishment. Some people simply realize this harsh reality sooner than others. Some choose to seek out the truth behind the ideal, yet others have no choice but to face it as they daily interact with the prejudice, discrimination, and inequality- words that are utterly incapable of painting the pain and despair that comes from being treated as “less-than”.

My head spins as I feel the tension build in the classroom. This must be what it feels like when the people around me start to see the bricks that once sealed all faith in institutional systems disintegrate. This must be what it feels like when the seals of simplicity are sliced open, and the epidemic of mold and infestation are exposed. This must be what it feels like when the tables are flipped.

The question: what is the purpose of the justice system? I feel the illusion of simplicity vanish. The brick wall projecting the notion of the clear-cut system of crime and punishment has crumpled to the ground. There is nothing but soot. What do we desire when we stand in an open abyss? When we question the purpose of the justice system, when we ask what justice is, what do we truly see? Do we see electric chairs stained with the residue of unattainable retribution? Do we see burdened hands and beaten hearts barred behind metal manifestations of righteousness? Do we see empty shells of humanity, carrying crosses-deserved or undeserved- locked away where we do not have to acknowledge the breath that they still carry in their lungs? No. We do not. Because anyone who has ever suffered injustice, violence, evil, unfathomable abuse, knows that there is no price that can be paid for the damage that was done. Even if systems were fair, even if by some impossible means punishment could be measured through an equitable lens- free of discrimination- nothing can compensate for the pain inflicted. Locking one person up does not set another free. Killing one person does not bring another back from the dead. Applying handcuffs and chains to someone does not release the grips and captivity that burdens another after an injustice was committed.

My eyes observe my classmates. I see the breakthrough, the tension exposed. I long to share with them the truth about injustice. My mind ponders where to start, my mouth searches for words to speak. Yet, I know that I cannot truly depict the gravity to which punishment never adequately reimburses a victim of a violent crime. I open my mouth to speak and my words paint a picture of inadequacy of retribution. My words tell a tale of desiring intervention, not punishment. However, they still do not suffice. I stare at my hands and I remember how often I clenched my fists. I remember how I daily held onto the ideal of crime and punishment. I remember how I had to let go and open them to see that I was holding onto nothing. Punishment will never wash away the scars that declare the prominence of suffering, it will never erase the memories that coat my mind, it will never re-establish the innocence that was stolen or the childhood that was stripped. Punishment will do nothing.

Yet, I held onto it for so long. I clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white- a white flag of surrender- until I had no choice but to surrender the ideal of crime and punishment. My illusion of justice. Only when I opened my hands did I see that justice did not rest in my tightened fists. Only then did I see that justice was not acquired through barred hands- through barred doors, through barred walls, through barred lives. No. Justice is not that simple.

Justice is more than our judicial system advertises. It is more than our judicial system declares. It is more than trying to fix pain and brokenness with a systemic cycle of pain and brokenness. If we start to see that justice really is more than we have ever been lead to believe, then maybe we will see how justice and mercy actually go hand-in-hand. Maybe, just maybe, if we discontinue our mantra of “crime and punishment” and start to understand mercy, we will understand justice.