Justice and Community
When we think about justice, for better or for worse, we often think of a handful of people and spaces whose responsibility it is to provide that for us. We think of the police, the courts, the government, the infrastructure that builds up the thing we call the ‘justice system’. It’s in the name, we think, and therefore we’re expected to get that thing there. It doesn’t matter whether we don’t trust those people or spaces, or whether we have a complicated relationship with them, or even if we don’t have the same access as others. That’s where justice is, and we have to find our way there or, as the Trinis would say ‘crapeau smoke yuh pipe’.
The issue is, though, that for many people, that’s not at all where justice lives. And, even more importantly, it’s not the same place as where the people who need it live. And that’s a problem.
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An easy example of this is police brutality and extrajudicial murder, happening worldwide. Whether you’re observing the Black Lives Matter movement across the United States, or being made aware of how marginalized communities suffer police injustice in places like Trinidad & Tobago and elsewhere, it’s evident that there is a mismatch in expectations around justice and police within some communities. But when these same communities need justice, where do they go? Where can they? Do they still call the police that they fear will brutalize them? Pray that their issue moves through the same courts that dismiss their brutalization? Or just resolve themselves to the fact that justice doesn’t live there? Each of those decisions are dissonant ones. On one hand, you can decide that you, like the system, have to be selective in the kinds of justice that you can get and deserve. On the other, you can accept that justice is something that you maybe do deserve, but must never get.
But those decisions aren’t the only acceptable ones. When justice doesn’t have a home where you live, you build one.
Some communities, losing hope that the justice system will punish wrongdoing without creating further harm within their communities, have developed their own strategies to engage both victim and perpetrator. Restorative justice practices that bring all parties of crime to the same table, community supervision techniques to help citizens feel safe, and internal systems of consequence and healing. A big part of those systems are opportunities for those who do wrong to return to the community, and for those harmed by them to find hope in their ability to change.
But a similarly huge part of the process is trust that justice will still be meaningful, and perhaps more swift. That’s, perhaps, where things get a bit dicier. Take, for instance, sexual harassment and gender based violence. Sometimes, victims don’t trust the justice system because of the agony they’ll have to experience before even the prospect of justice - the slut-shaming and character assault, the ostracism, the constant trauma that comes with reliving such a terrible moment. For many, that means saying nothing. Nowadays, though, that does mean reaching out the organizations and communities connected to those who bring them harm, and calling for justice there. Whether it means firing the culprit, banning them from community spaces, or creating clearer codes of conduct for people to feel safe, the expectations around who can and should do something has shifted.
But there are some real issues associated with that. For starters, the communities that we reach out to have to want to do that work and know how. And the sad truth is that even some of the most inviting communities don’t have both, or even either, of those qualities. Some don’t want to alienate any part of their community, even those who do harm. Some might even consider those who do harm as critical assets to their brand or their work, with enough power or reach to negatively affect how they exist. For some others, the work of justice simply seems too hard. And that can be especially true for issues of gender based violence, where evidence is sometimes scant, witnesses often fearful, and the consequences always life-changing. It becomes all to easy for people and communities to say ‘we wish we could help, but…’.
But…they can. We just need to have a more holistic idea of justice, and community, and the ways they tie together. Even today, when we hear of restorative justice in communities, it’s spoken of as some sort of grand experiment that we’re still waiting on the findings of, and not a complete philosophy of how to approach people and problems. Creating clear communal guidelines and expectations around suspected wrongdoing, constantly safeguarding against it, and creating opportunities for people to speak about their injustice as well as discuss their own healing and growth, is all possible for all of the things we require justice around.
And, let’s be honest…the ‘justice system’ isn’t doing that for us anyway.
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I bring up the challenges to community justice here not to give the impression that it’s too costly or complicated a process. In fact, in most instances, I’ve moved entirely to the point that we need community mechanisms to engage in most, if not all, issues of harm reduction and safety. I don’t trust the ‘justice system’ at all to inform the long-term safety and maintenance of the communities that need it the most. But, at the same time, justice requires infrastructure, no matter how small. In order to make a judgement on things we consider harmful, and the people that commit them, we need principled perspectives on harm, tools to identify and measure that harm, mechanisms for people to engage with their alleged guilt, and practices on how to repair that harm. That’s…no small feat.
Developing these systems won’t be easy. But part of the reason that it’s so hard is because of our internalized notions that justice comes from places outside of where we live, that we need to fight to access them even after that access is not made clear, and even then those systems endanger or abandon us.
The other part is that we have not yet held the communities that we are a part of responsible, or they haven’t stood up to that responsibility. Instead, they tell us that the job of justice is not theirs, because it’s hard. I beg to differ - their roles in our communities is exactly what makes the work theirs to learn to do. Where there is no system that gives us justice, everyone that engages in the communities that are marginalized away from it have to come together for it. We have to build it, together, where we live.
