Justice Echoes from the Edges.

Source: (-0001) Update: The Church Council on Justice and Corrections. (Winter): 21. Ottawa, Canada.

We must be a little like that. We know the time has come for change. Yet, we struggle and can’t let go of a system that we know is no longer working. In our case illustration, we saw unfold a process in which few of us believe in any longer. Yet we all-judge, crown, defence, police, clergy, victim and offender-we all played our role, and, only our role. We were very careful not to go beyond the parameter dictated by the role we played in the system. We respected one another’s turf and fragmented the verb human scene playing itself out in front of us. We never at any point needed to reach for something more holistic; to step out of this role the we knew could not work to anyone’s advantage. We fell back on notions like protection of society and deterrence for society. we just let the process unfold, (perhaps) knowing full well, that it would not, even could not, satisfy anyone. We felt a great wave of relief when Andrejs Berzins, perhaps rightly, suggested that the system is far too overwhelming and established to do anything but nibble at the edges with healing justice.(excerpt)