SOCIAL JUSTICE

Social Justice- Juvenile and Adult Offenders

Social Justice- Juvenile and Adult Offenders

Introduction

Social justice plays a vital role in explicating the equality and freedom of humanity. Social justice is guaranteed by law. Legislature forms a framework for formulating and implementing justice system in the society. Various laws enforced by the legal system forms a system to restrict the juvenile and adult offenders. (Apple & Deyling 1995, 45).

Justice

Justice, on the classical view, is a virtue; specifically, it is a disposition to give each person his or her due. Naturally, there has always been some difference of opinion as to what, exactly, is due to whom under which conditions. The most influential account has probably been that offered by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. Distinguishing justice in distribution from justice in rectification, he argues that in the former case, goods are justly distributed according to the proportionate merit of the recipients, and that in the latter case, just punishments and compensations are proportionate to injuries caused. The virtue of justice can thus be understood as a state of character that disposes people to act justly and wish for what is just, so defined.

Social Justice

At the core of any theory of social justice is a principle or set of principles whose function it is to rank-order existing and feasible alternative basic structures. If the existing basic structure of society is ranked at or near the top, then we might describe that society as reasonably just (according to that theory); if not, then we might describe it as relatively unjust. In the former case, the duty of justice would constrain the members of that society to support and comply with the existing basic structure; in the latter case, it would direct them to work toward establishing one of the more just alternatives.

Legal System

Legal system actually social justice by providing framework so people's voices can be heard and particular actions can be taken to work for the benefits of society. Abstractly speaking, the specific function of law is to protect the (normative) structure of expectations within a group against disappointments. This is primarily done by means of sanctions, which are imposed in case of disappointed expectations. At the same time, sanctions serve as incentives for the community members to fulfill the generalized expectations. The prerequisite for a socially effective, or “living” law, is not merely its standardization but also its institutionalization. Both developments are closely connected; they facilitate a division of legal work that is of major importance above all for the modern law. Under the conditions of an increasingly complex society, the uncertainty is growing as to what is expected of the individual and if this expectation is shared by others. Law tends to reduce this uncertainty by providing general rules of conduct, which are directed at everyone. The more abstract the standardization of behavioral rules becomes, the more necessary is the individualization of case decisions by appropriate institutions (Barrett 2004, 89).

Throughout history, legitimate and pragmatic legal systems have assisted in the crafting of ...