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| Family of slaves in Georgia, circa 1850. Wikimedia Commons. |
When an injustice has been done, there are, speaking in very general terms, four possible models for response. The retributive justice model assumes that there is a single legitimate authority whose job it is to assess whether a crime – a violation of positive law – has been committed, and, if it has, to punish the violator with a punishment commensurate with the crime. The injured has no direct interest in the proceeding – their injury is merely evidence to prove that a transgression has occurred. This is, broadly speaking, the way we approach criminal law – although we often justify punishments with theories about communal defense or rehabilitation, these are add-ons to a system that is conceived, at a fundamental level, as retributive.
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