Source: (2013) Campbell Law Review. 35:287-332.
The heavy punitive focus of the current criminal justice
system has failed to reduce criminality. It has also adversely impacted the
crime victims. This is because the general framework of prolonged
incarceration does very little to heal the victim or the affected community.
The offenders are rarely rehabilitated. More significantly, the procedural
instrumentality fails to hold them accountable for their actions. Viewing
through a normative prism, locking up a human like a caged animal should
be seen as an assault to the inherent human dignity on multiple
dimensions -the process neither provides any meaningful opportunity for
reconstruction and rehabilitation of the offender, nor does it restore and
reconstruct the psychological wounds of the victim. Such deprivation of
human values within society calls for a reexamination of the American
criminal justice system. This Article is about such reexamination by
reimagining the contributing factors underlying the criminal justice system. (excerpt)
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