There is a discussion going on in the comments at Durham in Wonderland about the quality of our justice system and the acceptable error rate. The ever ubiquitous anon. at 9:12AM had this to say:

As for rough justice? When most violent criminals are just that, violent criminals with long arrest and conviction records, records of commiting violent crimes and pleading down to lesser charges, WHO CARES???? I don't. I don't think rough justice can work for the crimnal underclass. But if it does, if it brings more pain to the families of those who bring pain to others, bring it on. I applaud it.

My answer (revised and extended) was:

Rough justice is normally done by rounding up the usual suspects. The people no one cares about if a mistake is made per 9:12AM.

However, when it becomes a habit and the race and class boundaries are breeched there is hell to pay.

Here is what Graham Greene has to say about who can be given rough justice and torture in his novel of the cold war Our Man In Havana:

"The poor in my own country, in any Latin American country. The poor of Central Europe and the Orient. Of course in your welfare states you have no poor, so you are untorturable. In Cuba the police can deal as harshly as they like with emigres from Latin America and the Baltic States, but not with visitors from your country or Scandinavia. It is an instinctive matter on both sides. Catholics are more torturable than Protestants, just as they are more criminal."

The Biggest Cover Up Of All

Rough justice is not real justice. It is a short cut. Short cuts have consequences.

When rough justice is the norm the innocent get no break.

The purpose of justice is to prevent the rise of a vendetta culture. It is bad for business.

Rough justice erases the line between guilt and innocence. It is an unwise policy.

Remember back to the movie Casablanca where the police chief says round up the usual suspects even though none of them were guilty. The good guy goes free. Some bad guys got punished, and yet we know in our heart of hearts justice was twisted.

So what level of error am I willing to tolerate?

I'm an aerospace kind of guy. We build the stuff so that it is safer to fly than to drive. We have a system for getting this done and correcting errors in a very timely fashion. Why not have a justice system held to similar standards?

An error is an error even if it takes a bad guy out. The quality of justice counts just as much as the quality of our airplanes. Either can take your life.

And yeah. It is going to cost more money to do things right.

The money is there. All we have to do is give up on drug prohibition and give the drug problem to those best qualified to handle it. Doctors.

We ended prohibition once. We can do it again.

===

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It won't prohibit worth a dime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we're for it.

Franklin P. Adams, 1931

===

Isn't it time that our justice system met the quality level of our air travel system? In terms of getting you to your destination alive? I will say it would be nice if your luggage arrived with you a bit more often.

Consider that the baggage system that goes with air travel makes about the same level of error as our justice system - in the range of 1% to 3%, and we are deeeply unhappy with that level of performance.

We ought to apply the same standards to justice as we do to baggage delivery.

One wag on the thread thought a miscarraige of justice was more likely in high profile cases due to community pressure. In other words the more community pressure the more corrupt the process. Not a comforting thought at all.

Cross Posted at Power and Control