Analysis Of Conflicts As Property By Nils Christie

In the scholastic literary work, Conflicts as Property, the author illustrates that conflicts play a vital role in societies. Conflicts in highly industrialized societies have been derived from people by the modern judicial system and professionals.

The author, Nils Christie, views conflict as a form of property that belongs to parties who created them. In highly industrialized societies, like the society we are living in, individuals have lost their rights in participating in their resolutions. Conflicts are either being dispossessed from their owner or being transformed into non-conflict. During a criminal trial, the victim is represented by the state instead of the individuals representing themselves. Although this could be seen as a means …show more content…
Conflicts are conducive to society's growth and development. It is not a good indication that crime rate has been decreasing in highly industrialized societies. Our structure of society had led to people’s over-reliance on the modern judicial system and professionals. Christie proposed that individuals ought to participate in resolving conflicts they have created. Victim-oriented court allows victims to participate in the proceeding and they would receive compensation for injuries suffered. That way, offenders would get to receive direct blame from the victim. Christie claims that attention should be centered on the victim’s loss, instead of the offender. Providing compensation and redressing to victims that were affected by offender should be considered a priority. The collaboration between victims and offenders in seeking the resolution for their conflict would enhance interpersonal relationships and understanding between one another. Furthermore, the author indicated that having lay judges would help in presenting a much fairer and consistent resolution, rather than having the skilled, professional judge take over people’s conflicts. A lay-oriented court would be depending on the judgement of people with no legal practice. In the article, The advantages and disadvantages of lay judges from a Swedish perspective, the author states,"career judges are isolated from the real world or at least that lay …show more content…
It has far-reaching consequences and impacts both the victim and the offender. Conflicts are also essential elements in society. Therefore, conflicts should not be taken over by neither the judicial system nor professionals. Conflicts should be solved by the ones who raised them and should not be transformed into non-conflict without the involved parties’ consents. In the article, Human Nature and Kant's Vision of International Society, the author illustrates a famous German philosopher’s thoughts on conflicts. She states that, “ conflict cannot be suppressed, even in the state. It is this conflict that causes reason to progress, for reason must be utilized to solve each conflict, leaving reason a little more developed than before. War between nations will follow the same course, with states banding together for protection and reason developing through the solving of conflict.” This demonstrates that conflict has a function in society, and without conflict, our society would make no progress. It is these conflicts that lead our society towards examining introspection and continuous improvement. Though, our modern judicial system was not established in a day. It has its function and a reason for its existence. As Christie mentioned, in Tanzania, an East African country, people get to have full participation in their own conflict and third parties would not be involved. But since we are living in a