Why Vengeance Should Not Be Officially Recognized

Vengeance has been one of the most important initiations of criminal activities since thousands of years ago. It can be dated with many well-known ancient Chinese literatures. It has never stopped, and is growing in a more harmful way. In 1985, a total of thirty five people from two gang groups were shot during a gun fight on a street in Hong Kong, eleven o'clock at night, because the sister of the head of one of the gangs was raped by a member of the other gang. During the gun fight, three innocent people were shot dead, including a policeman, six injured, and a total damage worth over five million Hong Kong dollars were cost to eight stores on the side of the street, including an art shop with valuable paintings. The gun fight was one of the largest and organized gang activities in Hong Kong since over eighty years, and it wasn't even the end of the gang's vengeance. This event was followed by another two street fight by these two gangs a few days later, caused even more damage. All of these were caused because of vengeance, and the effect of vengeance can been proven by this and hundreds of other similar criminal activities. Vengeance can create endless cycles that will cause more harm to the society than something with a one-time effect like drugs. Thus it should not be officially recognized for judgment in criminal law.

It is true that the law has to be fair to everyone, however one's feelings should not be taken into consideration. Since everyone is mentally different and has different feelings, it will not be fair to others if only one side's feelings are recognized. If the system tries to take both sides' personal feelings into consideration when judging, it is almost impossible to determine the truthfulness between two sides' feelings, and which one is guilty-like the old saying "one cannot read others' mind". Although there are devices like lie-detectors, which still cannot provide one hundred percent perfect results every time, one's feelings also will change through time, and it will take a great amount of work to determine a result in a timely and updated fashion. Thus wrongful judgment can be applied to the innocents and can bring unnecessary harm. Citizenry at large will much rather to have a fair judgment than a judgment that is based on one's feeling that cannot be proven true. Official recognition of vengeance or any kind of personal feelings will take away the peace of mind of the citizens.

So what if the truthfulness of one's feeling can be proven? When the judicial system is at work, how can it determine which is right and which is wrong? Which side or point of view should it take? Here is a basic example: if a person, John, owns another person, Chris, one million dollars, and Chris kills John's sister because John refuse to pay the money back and Chris is not able to kill John, which one will win the lawsuit? Based on the current criminal law, John will, and Chris will be sentenced death, because Chris killed an innocent. But if vengeance is taken into consideration, which one will win now? Is John's sister worth one million dollars? Not even any life insurance will provide one million dollars for an accidental