Criminal justice systems are rarely simply about crime; they are about the governance of populations — decisions about which harms are criminalized, which communities are policed, who is eligible for mercy and who is not, all of which track existing power structures with uncomfortable precision. A comparative look at criminal justice globally reveals not a universal logic applied in different cultures but radically different philosophies: rehabilitative systems in Scandinavia, punitive systems in the United States, community-based systems in parts of Africa and Latin America. The choice of system is a choice of values.
Juana