Our criminal justice system has several intended purposes. Protecting the innocent; convicting criminals; providing a fair justice process; keeping order; discouraging crime; removing dangerous offenders from society; punishing criminals in proportion to the crime; supporting people who suffer from crimes; and enabling offenders to return to the community.
“Our Criminal Justice System”
Our criminal justice system. Criminal justice. Criminal. Justice. Striking, is it not, that of all the words that we could have chosen to describe our justice system, we chose ‘criminal’?
Intended purposes aside, time, experience, and vocation have brought this term, ‘criminal justice,’ into sharper relief for me. Because words matter. The words we use to describe our values not only limn them; they say quite a bit about us. Does ‘criminal’ refer only to the justice meted out to criminals? Or does it refer also to the nature of the justice that we sometimes administer?
The sad, sobering truth is yes. Sometimes, we get it right. Sometimes, we get it horribly wrong. Suffice it to say, I have reasonable doubt about our criminal justice system. Justice is not merely something we administer to criminals or something to which we aspire to protect the innocent, but an attribute of the personal God with whom we have to do.
A System of Labels
In our criminal justice system, we foist labels onto ourselves and one another. We essentialize these labels, and, sometimes, even hide behind them. Labels like innocent, guilty, victim, criminal, perpetrator, and offender. How often do we forget that labels are only that! They only describe us in part, as people who may or may not be innocent or guilty of something. People who may or may not have been victimized. People who may or may not have committed a crime or offense.
Even when the labels are apt, it is helpful for us to remember that these labels refer to a person who is innocent or guilty of something; a person who has been victimized; a person who committed a crime or offense.
Naming the Breach
That we have a justice system at all witnesses the possibility, probability, and existence of breaches between us and that – God forbid – any of us might be on either side of the breach. Perhaps we call our justice system ‘criminal’ to name and bemoan these breaches that divide us. Maybe even to indict ourselves, that is, our propensity to play God instead of acting like God who – even and especially when we err – calls us back to ourselves just with mercy, just mercy.
Perhaps we call our justice system ‘criminal’ because we lament our penchant for retributive justice predicated on fear and prejudice over against restorative justice based on love and truth. Seeing this, I pray that the justice we administer is never blind to our personhood. That, like the prophet Amos, that erstwhile crusader for restorative justice, we assume our burden to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
Rhett Solomon
The Rev. Rhett Solomon (he/him) serves Vice Chair of the ECF Board of Directors and is Associate Rector at Holy Trinity Parish (Decatur) where he oversees Children, Youth, and Adult Formation. Rhett is the Diocesan Assembly Chaplain for The Order of the Daughters of the King (Atlanta); Chaplain of St. Joseph’s House, a formation community at Candler School of Theology; and adjunct faculty at Candler School of Theology. Rhett is a divorced father of two beautiful daughters, Charlotte and Skye. He enjoys reading, writing, poetry, music, history (African-American, British, United States, U. S. Presidential), mythology, art, traveling, hiking, tennis, swimming, basketball, movies, theater-going, playing board games and cards, and building LEGO sets. Learn more about the ECF Board of Directors.