Balance in the Administration of Justice and Essay

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Balance in the Administration of Justice and Security:

The twenty-first century world contributes to several challenges to governments because life has become increasingly globalized. The two major challenges in the globalized world are protecting the security of citizens and to protect people's freedom. The protection of security is a challenge because of the emergence of global terrorism, mass movements of individuals, and advances in communications technology. These factors make it difficult for governments to protect their citizens because it's much easier for terrorists to organize and co-ordinate their activities and campaign. In relation to protection of citizen's liberty, technology plays a crucial role in making the challenge tougher. This is primarily attributed to developments in computer science, satellite monitoring systems, and information storage that make it difficult to keep tabs on individuals ("Balancing Freedom and Security," 2006). As a result of these advances, citizens have to deal with a far-reaching range of increasingly complex bureaucracies that are intruding into their lives. Therefore, there is need to consider how the evolution of justice and security over the 21st Century may best balance rights and liberties with vigilance and adequate authority to safeguard citizens in a free society while respecting people's constitutional rights.

Evolution of Justice and Security over the 21st Century:

Since justice and security are two concepts that do not easily co-habit, they tend to be viewed as distinctive spheres within the global development discourse. However, justice and security are inseparable because security initiatives should be geared towards securing just outcomes through just processes. On the contrary, justice initiatives should consider human security as a fundamental human right. The other important aspect of security and justice efforts should be informed by and situated within a general normative and institutional context in which the eventual aim is the promotion of a rule of law system over governance.

In the past few years, justice and security are treated with simple sub-components of a development strategy together with basic social services like health and education (Harborne & Sage, 2010). The term security is dependent on several distinct concepts including ensuring individual's freedom from fear and violence, society protection, and national security. In the 21st Century, security has become paramount because of the increasing moral hazards that have been encountered in extremely violent contexts. As part of achieving a security outcome, the quest in security initiatives is to realize stabilization. In essence, many security instruments support negative peace i.e. The absence of active armed conflict rather than positive peace i.e. dealing with the structural conditions that contribute to the rise to violence. These instruments also fail to manage continual contestation in a peaceful manner. As a result, the tension between positive and negative peace is the main reason behind the seeming underlying tension between justice and security.

An evaluation of history shows that more than five decades ago, the world experienced a revolutionary changed in the nature of armed conflict. This paradigm shift was brought by technological, sociological, and other external factors. In addition to the shift that took place more than 50 years ago, the world is currently experiencing another revolutionary change that was brought by significant developments in the last decade. One of the most significant events that have contributed to the current revolutionary change is the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Nonetheless, the main factors underlying the change include the new global power balance, the rapid technological advances, and changing attitudes regarding the use of armed force in Western societies (Donnelly, 2003). Actually, the specific elements that have significant effects on current security scenes in North America and Europe include the ever-increasing gap between rich and poor nations, information revolution, and the uncontrollable technology proliferation.

The 21st Century world is faced with the need to evaluate what constitutes security, the threats to security, and the necessary responses to those threats, especially the threat of terrorism (Donnelly, 2003). However, there is need for consideration of justice and fairness when developing responses to security threats. These measures should also consider balancing rights and freedoms with vigilance and adequate authority to safeguard the citizens in a free society while adhering to the constitutional guarantees regarding individual rights.

The evolution of justice and security over the twenty-first century was fueled by numerous complaints from people regarding injustices in the society. As the rate of injustices within the criminal justice system increased significantly, countries experienced difficulties in respecting the rights of citizens and criminals. The rights of criminals have been violated from time to time since they are treated differently from ordinary citizens and are not permitted to enjoy equal rights.

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While technological and sociological factors have contributed to numerous challenges to the administration of justice and security, governments have developed new ways of punishment and new mechanisms for promoting justice. Some of the most important achievements that have been made as part of the evolution are the establishment of new laws and technologies and the inclusion of more rights in the constitution in order to create balance.

Issues Regarding the Legal Environment for Justice and Security:

There are various issues that concern the legislative framework in which justice and security administration operates. Consequently, the legal environment in which the administration of security operates has developed to become a major concern that includes the natural law of a particular nation. One of the major issues that concern the legal environment for the administration of justice and security is retributive measures. According to the natural law, every individual deserves the outcome of his/her actions. This is based on the principle that every action has an equal positive reaction, which implies that people face the consequences of their actions. Therefore, every action towards the violation of justice and security threats has an equal opposite reaction. However, efforts to deal with the security threats should be administered in accordance with universal justice and the protection of basic and constitutional individual rights. Retribution is the moral justification of punishment as compared to advocating that the society embraces impractical morality (Bradley, 2012).

The second issue is operating under mutual agreement of every concerned individual when administering justice. In this case, mutual understanding and authority in administration of justice should not favor any individual or group through ensuring that the formulation of justice is impartial. The need for mutual understanding and authority in administering justice helps in avoiding any biasness that could contribute to imbalance and inequality in the criminal justice system. The final issue concerning the legal environment in which justice and security administration operates is fairness. According to the law, punishment of an offense should be proportionate and morally acceptable to the committed offense. This means that the relevant authorities should not be biased in judgment but rather base all their decisions on the truth if the presented issues and the needed mechanism to ensure that the appropriate ruling is delivered.

Effects of Technology and Mass Communication on Justice and Security Areas:

Technological advancements have played a significant role in life in the twenty-first century in light of their impacts on modern communication and storage of information. These developments have also heard significant effects in mass communication as individuals can share information easily through various platforms and media. Consequently, technology and mass communication have had considerable and far-reaching positive and negative effects on justice and security areas.

The first positive impact of these measures includes the ease in disbursement of justice to citizens because of the development of new equipments to aid the process. The new equipments enable security agencies to easily communicate and enlighten people about their rights. Secondly, technological developments and mass communication has enhanced the efficiency with which the relevant institutions provide justice. The enhanced efficiency is delivery of justice is evident in the fact that institutions have the ability to serve many people with increased precision, especially in court. Thirdly, technology has contributed to the enhancement of security since mass storage of information helps in providing highly heightened and intense security measures.

However, technology and mass communication have also affected justice and security negatively, especially on security. First, technology has contributed to the development of the nature of modern weaponry with which a determined and competent enemy can make forced entry to a country. As technology contributes to development of new weaponry, criminals have devised new ways of carrying out their activities, which leads to increase in crime. Secondly, reliance on information technology because of information revolution has rendered many nations vulnerable to some form of terrorist attacks. This is mainly because criminal gangs or groups can develop means to access a country's security information and create new ways of carrying out their activities.

Individual Rights Issues vs. Needs of the Justice System and Security:

Since governments institute various laws, the issue of individual rights and maintenance of security and law and order must be critically considered. The need for considering individual rights when maintaining security is based on the fact that repressing fundamental liberties while pursuing justice in order to protect the society does not achieve any….....

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