THE 4 TYPES OF JUSTICE AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The most common types of justice in the world today are distributive, procedural, retributive, and restorative justice. Each of these types seeks to regulate the way people interact with each other within societies. In this way, if a person does not act prudently, he will be judged with the help of one of the forms of justice.

Justice is defined as corrective action that is executed in accordance with the requirements of the law. It is possible that some of the laws that ensure justice are rooted in the norms and social consensus of a group.

However, regardless of the origin of the laws, justice ensures compliance with them and the fair treatment of all individuals.

The issues that justice deals with are of different kinds, for this reason, there are different types of to deal with them. Each has important implications for the way a nation's judiciary operates.

In this way, justice affects the relations of all the states of the world in political, socio-economic, civil and criminal terms.

Main types of justice

There are four types of justice to which people can appeal if they consider that their physical, moral or emotional integrity has been violated. These are listed below:

1 - Distributive justice

Distributive justice is also known as economic justice. This is concerned with giving all members of society what is fair.

In other words, it ensures that each individual has access to the resources they need to have a decent life. In this sense, distributive justice is understood as that which is responsible for distributing wealth equitably.

However, while many people agree that wealth should be equitably distributed, there are many disagreements on this issue.

This happens because it is difficult to determine how much should be given to each individual to be fair.

Some criteria that seek to clarify this matter are those of equity, equality and necessity. Where equity means that the reward given to an individual is equivalent to the work he invested to get it; Equality means that all people must get the same amount of something regardless of their contribution; and need means that the people who need the most should receive more, and those who need less should receive less.

The fair distribution of resources, or distributive justice, is essential to preserve the stability of societies and the well-being of their members. When it is not executed correctly, multiple conflicts can arise.

2 - Procedural justice

Procedural justice is one that is concerned with making decisions and implementing what is derived from them fairly, ensuring that all individuals receive the treatment they deserve.

According to this type of justice, the rules must be followed by all individuals in an impartial and consistent way, in order to be able to process them without any type of bias in case they comment on any impropriety.

Those responsible for ensuring procedural justice must be impartial. On the other hand, people prosecuted by this type of justice must have some type of representation to be able to intercede in the decision-making process.

An example of this is public participation in local government instances when you want to make a decision that may affect citizens.

If people consider that the decision-making process is carried out fairly, they will be more likely to accept what is decided, even if they do not agree with it.

However, the implementation of fair processes is a highly debated issue, since any decision must always include negotiation, mediation, arbitration and adjudication of the decision, and this is not always an easy task.

3 - Retributive justice

Retributive justice appeals to the notion that people deserve to be treated the same way they treat others. It is a retroactive approach that justifies punishment as a response to previous malicious attitudes.

The central idea of ​​retributive justice is that the aggressor tends to gain an unfair advantage through his behavior, and therefore a punishment must be applied to balance the situation.

In other words, those who do not follow the rules must be brought to justice and must suffer the consequences of their actions.

The notion of dissuading people from committing certain crimes is also an important idea for retributive justice. Thus, it is believed that exposing the type of punishment that can be received for breaking the law is sufficient to dissuade the person from committing such a fault.

Additionally, the retributive justice system is not only responsible for ensuring compliance with local, state or national laws.

It also plays a key role in complying with international laws. This is how it must respond for the fulfillment of human rights and punish war crimes, among others.

4 - Restorative Justice

While retributive justice focuses on punishing the violator of the norm, restorative justice focuses on ensuring the well-being of the victim.

In this sense, many people are more in favor of restorative justice over retributive, since it focuses on returning well-being and tranquility to a specific individual and not to a nation.

Restorative justice is concerned with healing the "wounds" of victims, as well as making violators of the law have to adhere to it. It essentially seeks to repair the damage done to interpersonal relationships and the community.

In this type of justice, victims play a fundamental role in the direction of justice, indicating what the responsibilities and obligations of those who transgressed the law should be.

On the other hand, offenders are encouraged to understand the harm they have caused to their victims and the reasons why they should be held responsible for such harm.

Restorative justice seeks to balance relationships within a community and prevent certain harmful situations from happening in the future.

At the national level, these types of processes are handled through mediation programs between victims and offenders. On the other hand, at the international level restorative justice is usually a matter of institutionalizing the truth through reconciliation commissions.

References

1. Fraedrich, J., Ferrell, L., & Ferrell, O. (2009). Justice. In JF Ferrell, Business Ethics 2009 Update: Ethical Decision Making and Cases (p. 159). Mason: South Western.
2. Ghai, K. (2016). Types of Justice. Retrieved from 2. Economic Justice: yourarticlelibrary.com
3. Maiese, M. (July 2003). Beyond Intractability. Retrieved from Types of Justice: beyondintractability.org
4. Minds, C. (2016). Changing Minds. Retrieved from Four Types of Justice: changingminds.org
5. Ololube, NP (2016). Procedural Justice. In NP Ololube, Handbook of Research on Organizational Justice and Culture in Higher Education Institutions (pp. 7-8). Hershey: Information Science.