On ‘resorative justice’

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=9350

According to CathNews yesterday,

Australian Catholic University has awarded former Wagga Wagga police officer, Terry O'Connell, with an honorary doctorate for his ground breaking work in restorative justice in Australian communities and abroad.

[… Mr. O’Connell] has done extensive work in broadening focus for law enforcers by
conferencing with all parties affected by crime: victims, perpetrators and their families, in order to achieve understanding and reconciliation on both sides.

No doubt rehabilitation and crime prevention are worthy ends, but they are distinct from and subordinate to the cardinal virtue of justice (the cardinal virtues being those on which other virtues hinge). Punishment is every bit an end in itself as a just wage for an hour’s work is an end in itself. Considerations on whether punishment can serve other ends, or whether it should conflict with those other ends and not be meted out at all, are secondary. Let the justice system dispense justice before anything else.

(And I note that Mr. O’Connell now works as “Australian Director of the International Company Real Justice”. ‘Real justice’. What a joke.)

Reginaldvs Cantvar