Retributive Justice and Restorative Justice

[JeffA]

Here’s an interesting article by rabbi Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman in the Huffington Post huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-geo … 57219.html

[URPilgrim]

Rabbi Geoffrey

Indeed, the goal of justice is not to get rid of evil people – it is to get rid of evil.

I love it

…we should also be thinking about restorative justice, which is about asking, “What do we do now?” This is a harder, but more important question.

This is a great question. If hell is just retributive, once all the bad guys are in hell… now what? What is the end purpose of ETC? What value does it have?

My heavenly Father’s love (creator of all there is) must be better then that.

[Paidion]

Restorative justice is just beginning to have its effect in the prison system in Canada. In some places, prisoners are given opportunities to attempt reconciliation with their victims, or, if the victims are deceased, with the victims’ families.

[Paidion]

I might add: retributive justice and restorative justice are not the only options. Reformative justice is also an important factor.

[Alex_Smith]

Thanks Jeff for the interesting article

According to the data, when men (but not women) watched a “bad person”] get punished, they showed additional activation in reward related areas of the brain … that same highway of nerves that also gets titillated by sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Apparently, we are engineered to get pleasure from punishing those who deserve to be punished.

Itching ears… I guess we see the above in many action movies!

[JeffA]

Yes - I thought it was interesting to see a non-christian perspective on it. Similarly with my hobby-horse of the Jubilee and Jewish land laws. Whether a person who had been sold into slavery and lost his land had a kinsman redeemer or not, he (or his descendants) had their land returned to them after 49 years. They couldn’t lose their inheritance for ever - just possibly a very long and unknown time.