Generalizations can be tricky and dangerous things. There are likely a thousand different reasons that people commit crimes from the most heinous, greedy and self-serving of motives to those of desperation and necessity. I would like to think that our judicial system makes a serious attempt to determine more than who did it to why they did it. We all know the rather sarcastic comments about the judicial system aka the justice system. One of my favourites came from an environmental colleague who refers to it as the "just us " system. In other words it has been subverted into a system designed to keep judges and lawyers fully employed at high rates of pay for their entire lives if they so wish. One of the other comments is the reference to how wonderfully the justice system treats offenders. It goes something like this : "Our justice system in it's infinite majesty treats the poor man stealing a loaf of bread exactly the same as a rich man doing the same thing." Think about that and chew on it for a while.
So besides desperation and necessity forcing a person to steal food or money to support themselves or their families are their other difficult but understandable reasons why people resort to criminal behaviour? I would certainly think so. "Street justice" may or may not be what it claims to be which is a rough and quick way versus the incredibly laborious, slow and expensive route of going through the courts. First of all the police and the courts represented by the Crown often simply refuse to go forward with complaints from citizens. They are almost notorious for their failures in prosecuting sexual assaults for example. Unless the victim is severely beaten or is a nun or ninety years old; far too often police have decided that the case is a "he said, she said" scenario without serious investigation first to so determine.
Other issues arise such as if you've been harmed by an individual or group and again there is no reasonable recourse to the courts. Having gone through them a couple of times for example trying to enforce the Ontario Municipal Elections Act (MEA) I can advise readers that they are ridiculously slow, complicated and user unfriendly. It's almost as if even the staff are offended if a citizen dares to exercise their rights by attending court offices to either get basic information, forms or advice as to when for example a Justice of the Peace is available for an appointment. Trying to get files or paperwork that you are legally entitled to in a civil or criminal case is equally difficult. Regarding a particular civil servant many years ago I would have been far better off to have broken their leg, been convicted of assault, served time as a first offender then to have gone through a phony complaint process (as so many are) which ended up in court anyways. I might add here that our courts most certainly are biased in so many ways. They bend over backwards for individuals working within the "System" and by that I mean all the government systems including health care, education, municipal, provincial and federal government as well as their various departments. Also no real surprise they are biased against indigenous persons, immigrants, Muslims, blacks and basically anybody else they don't take a shine to.
Fair warning to our alleged Justice System. Black markets develop both for grossly illegal products as well as for things like cigarettes, lesser harmful drugs such as marijuana and more. This will happen more and more as our justice systems become more and more nothing but a playground for the rich to beat up on each other. No one objects to proper police procedures in order to maintain the peace and keep honest citizens safe. If this is followed by more timely and less expensive court appearances and lawyers fees then all will be well. Otherwise once enough people understand that what we now have is the best legal system in the world THAT MONEY CAN BUY , then anarchy will set in.
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