What Justice Means To Me!

Justice test

The question has been asked many times "What is the meaning of Justice?" The dictionary say justice means: "the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments" it also states: "the administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity" (Merriam-Wester online dictionary 2007). Depending on which meaning you read and are looking for it could have a different effect on you. Depending on the person you are, where you come from and your moral standards, justice can be a number of different things.

My opinion of justice began as a young child watching the cartoon of super heroes saving the world from evil bad guys. This idea of justice was instill through me watching the cartoons and wanting to do good and being a hero like the characters. I remember many times playing with the other children, and there was always this one kid that would like to get away from the activity that we all were playing. This child would try to convince all of the other children to do bad things (i.e. break a window, steal from a store, and steal from other neighbors or break into the local grade school). I was the child (at that time) that would try and deter the others from following. Along with my watching the cartoons, I also had my aunt to tell me to always "Be good Jose." My identity of a good child would not stand long as I got older. My morals would change as did my neighborhood and friend too.

Becoming a teenager was new and exciting. Justice still meant a lot to myself being. For the most part I was always on the right side of the law. Maybe it was because I was in to sports (Little league baseball, or Socooer programs). Maybe it was because in the past of watching the super heroes on television. Maybe it was because of the way I was raised by my mother. No matter I still always had looked up to the police as super heroes in my neighborhood. About the time I turned age 16 my neighborhood started to change. My friends started to fall of the good path and into trouble. I noticed the change and wanted to be with my friends. I also noticed a change in my family. My mother seem to be out of it (depressed). My sister (who is the oldest between me and her by 3 yrs) started to change. The change was a look at the police as if they were the enemy. I can remember one childhood friend telling me "the police do nothing for us but put us down." My outlook started to change with them when I seen adult male beaten by the police (did not understand why) and when I was stopped by the police for questioning (for no reason, we were riding bike in the neighborhood). It is these actions that continued to take place in my area that made my outlook for the law change. With this change of outlook I did not respect the law. I decided to start committing criminal acts for my own profit. I knew that morally it was wrong but as far as the law was concerned I did not care. I no longer had the perception of the police as friends. I did not think they were holding justice in my neighborhood.

Now being a young man on the tough streets of crime, made me into a criminal. My only real look at justice (the local police) had failed me. I was not impressed with the action they had performed. And being around other bad influences did not help. It was not until I graduated from high school and began to go to college when this outlook changed. I really had no interaction with the neighborhood (friends or police). I was out of the criminal life and starting to see that life can be good if you are a good citizen. At the local college I made a few friends which happen to be the campus police. Now I would not consider them to be full fledge police but they were a representation of the law. These people did have a good way of dealing with people. They were not intimidating at all. Justice was starting to look pretty good in my life. I decided to take an Administrative Justice class. There the professor was an ex law enforcer. He actually had the same ideas I did. He had grown up in a tough neighborhood of East Los Angeles. We discussed in class the past events that could make people look at the law as being unfavorable. Back then the Rodney King incident with Los Angeles police. At the time I did not know the actually fact of the incident but I knew that what those police officers did was wrong. I had seen an incident similar