The premise of the American “Justice” system has been that wrong doers would be caught and after a trial by a jury of their peers the evil doers would be punished. The idea of the punishment is first to get the bad people out of circulation, but much more importantly to deter others in the future from doing destructive stuff.

The concept is a nice one, but it effectively only works for middle class people with assets. If you are poor, you have nothing to lose with fines, or jail time. Even the death sentence, which functionally is never used, is not a deterrent. Conversely if you are really rich, you first hire others to do the dirty deeds, but then you have lawyers and government officials to manipulate the “Justice” system to keep you from suffering (except for their fees of course). So we end up with a “Justice” system that functionality only affects middle class people with morals and assets. These folks have something to lose in punishment and more importantly have some internal values or morals that make them understand their behavior is bad for society.

With all that preamble, analysis of the effects of the current justice system tells us that most of the folks in jail are poor and dark skinned, but even more worser, most of the victims of crime are the same ethnic and economic group. Is that fair? Some sources say that 90% of the victims of crime are Black. These are only recording the crimes that have been reported to police. How many black women have been beaten, raped or ripped off and just roll with it. Because they know the courts and the “Justice” system will not go after the perps.

The evidence of this was brilliantly exposed after California changed their laws to say that stealing less than $950 worth of goods was the same as a parking ticket. Besides the minuscule fines, most police do not write parking or even speeding tickets today because there is no enforcement in the courts. We all see the end result with retail crime at epic levels and drug use and abuse openly living on our streets.

Is this equitable? If we are supposed to be that “shining city on the hill” how can we allow the poorer people of color to be abused and then the perp’s unpunished by the state, while the white majority and a few other ethnic groups practically never go to jail or even to court?

Instead of the US “Justice” system there should be an equitable system based on fairness. If perp “A” causes harm to a citizen regardless of race, color, creed, sexual persuasion or family affiliation they should repay the damage and restore the victim to their healthy condition before the crime took place. This equitable system would not likely change the laws on the books of what is right or wrong, good or bad behavior. The result of such anti-social behavior would just follow some simple guidelines. The convicted person must repay the injured party for the damage they caused and restore them to their original condition before the crime, after paying for their government’s costs of finding and trying the criminal offender.

In simple terms if Perp A, robs $100 from citizen B the perp would pay the injured victim back the stolen money and some additional compensation for the time and stress the robbery caused citizen B.

The convicted perp would also be required to pay the governing authority for the police time, efforts and damages caused in the process of bringing the legal case to a conclusion. These rules would apply to any and all perpetrators of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds. Failure to meet the court assessed damages and restitution would bring the perp into community service until the total judgment was paid.

So for a simple bar fight assault: the instigator would pay the medical bills of the injured and the damages to the bar (including lost business). Then pay the cost of the arrest and trial as well as any lost time on the part of the injured and any long term loss of function. For example some fee for facial scarring and the plastic surgery to repair it.

Until these obligations are met (allowing a reasonable amount of time to come up with the money), the assailant would be assigned community service for the city or jurisdiction at prevailing rates of pay by commercial suppliers until the debt is paid.

For example an armed robbery of a wallet, cellphone and car keys would entail:

Finding the assailant, trying and convicting the person would be cost acquired by the city to be repaid.

Repaying the victim for the lost merchandise and any costs to return the victim to their original condition for example: lost work time as well as emotional adjustment and any damage to the victim’s goods or possessions.

The collection of these reparations will be supervised by the legal authority at a fee commensurate with outside services until the court says the debt is paid and the assailant has met all the obligations.

If the convicted is unwilling or unable to pay the obligations caused by their action the court will assign them a work position that will maintain, repair, or enhance the city and take their labor as reparations until all the obligations to the court, the victims and the community at large are fulfilled.

If the convicted will not or cannot make these reparations payments the court will assess what others knew or should have known about the illegal behavior and assess them 10% of the fines and work time until the debt is paid or some fixed amount of money or community service. For example, if the robbery above was plotted with an accomplice who did not actually participate in the crime, that person would be obligated to 10% of the reparations and community service to the amount of the court established value.

The effect of this Equitable system of law enforcement would in a short period of time reduce the incidence of crime and act as a strong deterrent for destructive behavior.   Not only because the law would be enforced equally on every offender for every offense, but it would encourage the victims of crime to participate in the system. Beyond guaranteed consequences for every evil deed, with friends and relatives being on the hook for the behavior of others, the peer pressure would greatly discourage bad behavior.

Sadly, there will be some folks who even with an equitable, persistently reliable system would still do serious wrongs. For example murder: since the perp would not be able to return the victim to life. Further even a lifetime of service to the community would not pay for the crime and its consequences; these offenders would be put into the existing jail for the rest of their life performing some worthwhile service for the community. They would have weekly access to suicide drugs so that when they had enough, they could end their life and lighten the load of the prison staff.

This plan could provide great improvement for the local community as well as the wider world. Besides taking a committed criminal off the streets. Taxes could be reduced as the prisoners would be doing work at reduced rates. Consider the great blessing these long term criminals could be cleaning the environment by sorting the garbage from our landfills and then recycling the hand separated materials. Poor criminals with no money or skills that legitimately want to improve themselves might get into work training programs and those hours and passed tests could count as reparations for the damage they did?

Here is my idea for saving black and poor victims the pain of crime and more importantly reducing the number of crimes committed. 

 Let me know what ideas you have.