It’s Time to Confront Failures of Justice (Part III)
This is the third in a five-part series where we’re guest blogging about our new book Confronting Failures of Justice: Getting Away With Murder and Rape, available here. The last two posts introduced the problem of failures of justice (instances of unpunished or inadequately punished crime) and discussed how the problem is not solving itself. Now it’s time to talk about costs. Why should we care about failures of justice? One cost is moral—we, along with most people, believe that there is a moral obligation to punish serious crime. This argument could also be made in social contract terms—the government has a duty to its people to punish those who victimize them.
But in addition to these moral costs, failing to punish serious crime produces enormous real-world harms. These include trauma to victims and co-victims, as well as increased crime through loss of incapacitation, reductions in deterrence, and, perhaps most importantly, the consequences of a decline in the law’s moral credibility with the community. Consider an excerpt from our book discussing the harms caused to victims and their families.
Many serious, violent crimes leave victims alive but scar them with emotional trauma, especially when justice is not served. Surviving a rape or attempted murder is merely the beginning of suffering for most victims. A victim may well find some measure of solace and healing in the thought that their attacker has been caught and punished, but most victims of serious crime never experience that comfort…. It is impossible to quantify the suffering victims experience when their victimizers escape justice, but the cost is real and significant.… Studies have found that rape victims are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder if they have “negative experiences with the criminal justice system” compared with those who have positive experiences with the system or even those who had no interaction with the system. The knowledge that one’s attacker still walks free can be infuriating and crippling to many victims.…
Rape is not the only crime with enormous personal costs. When a murderer or other serious violent offender gets away without deserved punishment, the victims’ families and friends are emotionally scarred. The relatives and friends of someone lost to homicide are often referred to as “co-victims,” a term that acknowledges that victimization extends far beyond the person killed. Anyone who has had a friend or a family member murdered will have to deal with lifelong grief, but a failur
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