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I hold that justice is primarily neither for punishment nor for rehabilitation but for ensuring the security of peaceful society.
The man who stands condemned is not to be hated, and he isn't to be pitied. He is to be shunned, to be banished, to disappear, he ceases to exist until he has done enough penance to be acknowledged again or bar that possibility he does so forever as we recommend his forgiveness to higher powers.
We are not perfect, that is true. But lest you are a victim (in which case emotions are tolerated), justice is to be treated with a solemn dignity that precludes all emotion.
CS Lewis has something to say about that http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ResJud/1954/30.pdf
I hadn't read this particular text, but I'm familiar with this point and I certainly agree with his analysis that treating crime as pathology that can be cured is dangerous, and I can furthermore notice that the problems with this approach have only become more apparent today.
That said, I do not believe this particular argument is valid against the theory of justice I subscribe to. I do not wish to cure crime, neither am I under such delusions as to believe it possible to eliminate it from society. I merely wish to carve out an island of dignity and civilization from the brutish state of nature and exclude those who can't or won't restrain themselves from it.
This is something that is compatible with both approaches that are discussed by Lewis here. Indeed one can argue it from both sides: the rehabilitation proponent will argue the criminal needs to be isolated from society for the cure to be administered, whilst the retribution proponent will argue the criminal deserves his isolation as punishment.
I see no need for either kind of cruelty in justification. The criminal needs to be isolated solely because he can't behave himself in a way that can have him participate in society, and I see no practical need for emotion in the process except as to allow the victim to feel sated enough that they can remain secure from future abuses.
I know people will argue the need for a more transcendental form of justice that restores some order to the universe by either enacting the victim's revenge or removing the criminal pathology from the perpetrator. Neither seem practical to me, as I do not believe in a cosmic justice. At least not one made of men.
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