Justice and Law: A Love Hate Relationship Essay Example

It is never alright to take the law into your own hands to serve justice. Taking the law into your own hands is the act of vigilantism. Vigilante justice is highly frowned upon and here's why.

What would happen if our legal system allowed certain people to take justice into their own hands? If people could take justice into their own hands, it would deem our legal system useless. In addition, it will completely remove the point of having a legal system. An example of this is shown in the book And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie. Justice Wargrave, who is the murderer in the story explains that he wants to kill people, but is doing it only to serve justice. Throughout the book, Mr Wargrave kills people who have committed a crime and gotten away. Wargrave felt that it was his responsibility to punish them for his crimes, and to do so he lured them out to an island to kill them, one by one. On his manuscript, where he admits his crimes, he says, “From an early age I knew very strongly the lust to kill. But side by side with this went a contradictory trait-- a strong sense of justice.”(p. 285-286) Now he has committed a crime by killing people and technically gotten away, but he still commits suicide. You can see now, how taking justice into your own hands just causes more trouble and puts you in the wrong as well.

Let me take a point from the opposite perspective: “You should be able to take the law into your own hands if the law has failed to do its job and act to serve justice is justifiable.” Firstly, this is wrong because what you think is justifiable may not come off or be justifiable to others. For example, my definition of justice and avenging people might be different from other people. If I do something that upsets the authorities, no matter how right I think it is, I will still get arrested. Secondly, if the law has failed to do the set task, then you can attempt to get the law to do its job. This is said very well by William Gaddis, a novelist, in this quote: “Justice? -- You get justice in the next world. In this one you have the law.” This is shown in the movie “Clue”, Mr Green says in the third ending, “But, the police will be here any minute! You'll never get away with this, any of you!” This is stating that he hasn't taken the law into his own hands, but has gotten the police involved, which has helped the law do its job. By not taking the law into his own hands, he has not only saved himself from a possible court case, and further consequences, whilst reinforcing the law.

To sum it all up, the law in the United States has kept the nation running for numerous years. You should not take the law into your own hands as it will most probably get you into trouble, either because the act done to serve justice was against the law, or others opinions on what is right and wrong will contradict yours.