The Restorative Party's first goal is to redefine the goal of our justice system- our government should be far more concerned with restoring what can be restored and protecting against future harm than avenging what already happened.
A healthy society has no need to punish beyond what's essential to correct bad behavior and correct others from it. And punishment has no need to extend beyond the removal of access to the benefits of society and free life.
The only reason why our police forces continue to emphasize the use of such lethal tactics is because of economic gains. The companies that benefit the most from the present situation use aggressive tactics to keep it that way.
A healthy society would focus on producing technology and methods that prioritize safety without sacrificing efficacy. The Restorative Party doesn't seek to disarm, we simply want our weapons to be as effective as possible at providing for our safety.
There are two currently unacceptable practices that take place within the prison industry: for-profit prisons, and labor exploitation benefitting for-profit companies.
The Restorative Party seeks to end both practices. We will be drafting legislations and seeking sponsorship, as well as tracking support amongst all levels of politicians so that people can make informed decisions at elections.
The War on Drugs is a lazy attempt at treating a symptom instead of curing a disease. It's caused substantially more damage than stability, and we need to drastically change our approach to drugs to give ourselves the best shot of both beating addiction and ending drug-related corruption and violence.
Addiction is not cured with authoritarianism, and black market influence is more dangerous than the drugs themselves. The Restorative Party seeks to build legal markets around all drugs and offer genuine help to organizations struggling with drug use, not just more trauma to fuel the cycle.
The Restorative Party's many individual policies contribute to our vision of a safe and protected society, including an empowered police force.
We believe that protection is a clearly defined responsibility of the government, and as such, believe that more tax money should be directed toward maintaining effective police forces, while NPEs and other NGOs help provide the Basic 10 Needs.
In addition to empowering police with more effective weaponry and laws that help more than they hurt, we need to ensure that they are taken care of financially by taxpayers without any dependence on fines.
We must not blur the lines between enforcing the law and financially sustaining our police forces.
Our ultimate goal is creating a government that is truly trusted to keep us all safe and do the right thing. By removing any financial incentives to do anything but provide the best in safety, we remove any possible situation where the law applies for any reason other than justice.
Not only that, but by focusing criminal laws only on truly harmful actions, and criminal justice only on reform and future protection, we foster a feeling of genuine trust on all levels of the community.
And community trust is the law enforcement's most effective tool in protecting the community. By eliminating all other distractions from the system, we will ensure humanity is provided with the best safety systems possible.
Anger is a bad deal for us. Physical aggression is rarely a path forward in modern society, so the stimulation granted by anger doesn't serve any practical purpose. It just adds stress to our lives, and in many cases, lead us to make decisions that aren't nearly as worth it as they feel in the moment.
While many of us are recognizing the detrimental effects of anger in our individual lives, a parallel issue persists on a societal level. Our justice system, rather than embracing a holistic approach to justice, often prioritizes the resolution of anger and the pursuit of revenge above all else.
In truth, we have been conditioned to accept an equal punishment as a sole source of justice, but this is nothing other than the consequence of generations of either corrupt or crisis event leadership. Wise leaders know that harshness accomplishes nothing, and compassion is required at all times.
Instead, our government hopes that we're angry enough to accept their continuation of pain in the form of punishment as consolation for whatever wrongs we were a victim of. A healthy government would offer more assistance and reparations in the moment, and more protection for the future instead of getting mad at the past.
While calm and talking of trivial things, we easily admit that the treatment for pain is not more pain, it is healing and service. Our anger, however, blinds us to the true value of things and leads us to accept the poor solution of revenge from our government, which can the fracture our communities more than the original crimes.
There are some who say anything but the harshest enforcement of the law is strong leadership, but revenge is weak and cheap. We need to separate ourselves from it to re-examine what Justice truly is, and rebuild our system around restoring and protecting, not avenging.
Knowing what justice is not, let's examine what Justice should be. It is traditionally defined as the concept that there is a proper proportion of good and bad between what someone does and what happens to them. It's essentially used by societies as a more actionable form of Karma, as justice systems typically seek to compensate for what the population would view as a lack of natural consequences.
But there are two separate things that need to be addressed about this perspective. First and foremost, considering these additional consequences alone as a complete serving of justice only acknowledges justice relating to the person who committed the crime. It ignores justice as it relates to the victim. The victim almost certainly did not deserve to be a victim of a crime, and solely focusing on addressing criminal behavior with punishments ignores the justice that needs to be served to the victim.
The second reason why you can't call punishing criminal behavior a complete form of Justice is that mandatory sentencing can easily transform just punishments into injustice over time. Using punishment beyond what is absolutely necessary to correct behavior offers no productive benefit to society. All it does is limit a person's ability to return to a contributing position.
To that point, we must be precise in our persecution of criminal behavior. Once identified, the priority becomes protecting society from it's immediate threat, and then it becomes rehabilitating it. If we're able to create environments where that is possible and effective, then we need to fully abandon the idea of fines and jailtime being mandatory parts of criminal behavior correction.
It needs to be the collective philosophy of the justice system that healthy people want to be good participants in society. Without unjust laws like drug laws that seek to criminalize human behavior without adequate alternative support, breaking the law should be viewed as a sign of a mental or social health issue that needs to be rehabilitated.
Without compromising on the need to restrict the freedom of people while they pose a risk to others, we need to stop jailing people simply because it's in the rules. We need to address the core issues that lead to criminal behavior while offering more effective and less lethal protective forces to make sure that criminal deterrents remain.
By focusing only on the aspects of Justice that truly provide long term value to society and minimizing the value of cashing in on anger, we challenge our government to provide genuine Justice and protection. Not only for the sake of humanitarian good, but for the practical safety benefits that a balanced criminal justice approach provides.
For example, when people don't feel as they will be punished for previous mistakes no matter what, they are more willing to trust and cooperate with the government in regards to genuine threats to society. In fact, an argument could be made that harsh punishments actually protect criminals by threating those close to them for them.
Moreover, there's a mental health aspect to readdressing how we as a species process and recover from selfish mistakes. By shifting the focus from punishing the past to restoring the present and protecting the future, we maximize our efforts to provide a safe and just society.
The Restorative Party wants the best version of everyone to be in the future. If people are willing to change and grow, society should invest in that regardless of the mistakes that they have made in the past. Safety will always be the top priority, but that is why we need to let go of anger in times of pain and focus on healing. Perpetuating cycles of pain only destabilizes our society more.
Acknowledging this, we must reject our angry impulses and approach these matters with a cautious temper. This perspective is nothing new- if you read the Constitution, it is clear that safety and prosperity are the goals of government. not punishment. The Restorative Party challenges everyone to transform their perspectives around justice to keep the same focus that our Founding Fathers had.
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