The Cost of Justice

The Cost of Justice

Justice is referred to as the rights that are based on moral principles, state laws, fairness or equity as well as the punishment of the violation of alleged moral principles (Baldacci, 2008). Some theorists of justice define it as the desirable quality of social institutions. Understanding justice is essential because this term differs from one society to another. However, in some cases some of the principles of justice can be the same across the society. The concept is usually associated with fair treatment in the community. Many advocates of the theory of justice theory reveal that fairness is part of the natural law. Thus, the government may want to achieve fair treatment by executing criminals but this will be costly in selecting juries, carrying investigations and providing criminals with basic needs.

Justice expenditure has increased on corrections at the state and federal level. Since 1980, the expenditure on justice is increasing everyday because the federal and the state are trying to adopt better standards of promoting fairly treatment across the nations (James and Roger, 2004).The research study carried out on the annual survey of the government financial survey report indicates that the federal government spends a lot of money in maintaining justice. According to the fiscal survey of 2007, the local and federal governments spend over $228 billion for corrections, police protection, judicial and other legal services. There was an increase of 1.3% following the previous year after inflation of corrections. The local expenditure on criminal justice in 2007 was estimated at 57%. The direct expenditures on major criminal roles such as corrections, police investigations and judicial services have steadily increased since 1982 (Baldacci, 2008).

In addition, the report of 2010 corrections expenditures survey reveals that $ 457 million were spend on maintaining justice in America. The money was distributed to all states of America and the local governments received the largest awards (Cooper and Reavens, 2011). The federal government analyses the criminal justice employment and corrections expenditure. For instance, it was reported that corrections employment for a particular state represented the same total number of correctional employees for a certain state. The federal state spends a lot of money on corrections thus, about $74 billion and 61% is spent on correctional employees nationwide. The research indicates that the federal criminal justice relatively remained stable over the decade from 1997 to 2007.

Corrections are one of the systems of punishing criminals in America. Even though capital punishment constitutes reasonable efforts of reducing crimes, it can lead to other costs (Skolnick and Currie, 2007). This is because this form of punishment is not an effective method of controlling crimes but rather seen as consuming too much resources which could otherwise be allocated to other department (Harmon, 2010). The resources can be instead allocated in justice defensive or educating the public on the importance of maintaining peace. Capital punishment not only fails as solution to curb violence but also leads to excessive costs in implementation of justice. The case of death penalty can actually make the federal government to be badly in need of financial. This will force them to alter resources that are being effective for crime fighting techniques to death penalty, which will be costly (Armitage, 2005).

In addition, the government may want to achieve fair treatment by executing criminals but this will be expensive too. This is because life imprisonment, which takes longer time, is more costly than other murder trials. Moreover, the government will spend a lot of money in the investigations and selecting juries. Even there are other costs especially providing the criminals with basic needs such as food. Actually, the state pays the cost of life imprisonment together with other expenses thus this type of punishment is regarded as ineffective. The research indicates that this type of punishment in America has reached a critical stage because the trials were found exhausting the state’s resources. It was found that the state spends many dollars in executing one defendant and yet that money could be effectively allocated in long-term crime reduction (Dieter, 2011).

We are not achieving justice because when we weigh the costs of justice and benefits to legal problems, we will find that we are not making any change. The federal government has civil justice system that protects people’s rights and make sure that every citizen is treated fairly. However, the empirical research carried out in many states reveals that justice is hard to achieve. Surprisingly, little is known on how this civil justice system operates. There is no clear indication on whether it will meet the requirements of the user or what are the costs associated with the system (Jance, 2007). Individuals experience the problems of civil legal problems everyday. For instance, the international research carried out in Canada indicates that there is high legal problems encountered everyday in the general population. About 45 to 48 percentage of the general population has legal problems with a few being addressed. This indicates that some of the legal problems are left unaddressed and are unclear thus indicating that we have not yet achieving justice (Crime and Justice Institute, Engel and Boston Foundation, 2009).

It will be challenging to measure the costs of justice because it cannot derive the reliable cost measure. Furthermore, the public fiscal investment must provide access to justice within the social context. Evidence-based research in needed on the cost of justice. The research should be in apposition of providing the benefit analysis on the costs of justice. The government may spend much money in maintaining justice but there are still social problems, which have major costs for individuals in the society. Therefore, the government may want to achieve fair treatment by executing criminals but this will lead to other associated costs. Thus, we are not achieving justice because the civil justice systems are not well addresses in the society.

References

Armitage, S. (2005). The cost of capital: intermediate theory. New York, NY: Cambridge

University Press.

Baldacci, D. (2008). Divine justice. New York, NY: Grand Central Pub.

Cooper, A.D and Reavens, A.B. (2011). Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program, 2010. Bureau

of Justice Programs. Retrieved on June 20, 2011 from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2412

Crime and Justice Institute., Engel, L., & Boston Foundation. (2009). Priorities and public

safety: Reentry and the rising costs of our corrections system. Boston: Boston Foundation.

Dieter, C.R (2011). What Politicians Don’t Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty.

Retrieved on June 20, 2011 from http://www.fnsa.org/v1n1/dieter1.html

Harmon, D. E. (2010). Careers in the corrections system. New York: Rosen Pub.

House of Commons – Justice Committee: Government’s Proposed Reform of Legal Aid – HC

681-II. The Stationery Office publishers.

James W and Roger E. (2004). Sustaining Drug Courts in Arizona and South

Carolina: An Experience in Hodgepodge Budgeting, 25 The Justice System Journal, No. 1

Jance, J. A. (2007). Justice denied. New York: William Morrow.

Skolnick, J. H., & Currie, E. (2007). Crisis in American institutions. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn

and Bacon.

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