Reference no: EM133628668

Question

When I hear the word justice, I think of the phrase, "justice has been served," which implies that an offender has been fairly punished for a crime committed. This reflects the system of retributive justice, which is used in Canada as well as many other countries around the world. The goal of retributive justice is to punish offenders (often through incarceration), which would in turn help change their behaviour for the better. Our criminal justice system is built on racism, making it unjust at its core. Black and Hispanic people are incarcerated at a disproportionate rate as white people. This is largely due to systemic disadvantages that people of colour face that can contribute to a rise in crime, as well as racism within the criminal justice system that punishes more black people than white people for the same crime (Pew, 2023). A prime example of this is drug possession. In 2020 in the US, black people made up 25% of drug possession arrests while being 14% of the population, while White people made up 72% of drug possession arrest compared to their 71% of the population. 22.5% of both Black and White people said they had used illegal drugs.