Critical Summary of Nils Christie’s Conflicts as Property PDF

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LAWS 1000 A

Sophia Millan

Introduction to Legal Studies I

101160942

Assignment #1 Critical Summary of Nils Christie’s Conflicts as Property

Professor Jane Dickson, PhD (Law) Sylva Sheridan A08

Carleton University Depart of Public Affairs October 11th, 2019

Nils Christie believes that developing societies have resulted in a process where the ability to retain your conflicts and participate in them has been taken away from the parties involved and is misplaced within the hands of the legal system where the original parties are often neglected. He believed that conflict was important, that conflicts are often taken from involved parties and that there needs to be a new method for dealing with conflicts. Christie argues that conflict is important for the growth of our societies as a lack of conflict leads to a discourage of social interactions between individual. Conflicts within societies help to stimulate growth as conflict allows for behavior, relationships and actions to evolve and change as society changes. Nils Christie states that conflicts should be the property of the involved parties but that in western societies conflicts have been taken from the involved parties’ possession. He writes that the victims in criminal law are losing their rights to be able to participate in their own legal issues (Christie, 1977) and as a result, the conflicts are eliminating the involved parties and are not used to help benefit the individuals. Christie believes that by viewing conflicts as property, it had impacted the way which individuals and the legal system are treated and the way in which they behave. Presenting an example of where two parties had direct participation of their own conflict resolution while the other individuals have little involvement and did not attempt to become involved in the case (Christie, 1977) which differs from the traditional western mechanism. He argues that by taking the conflicts from the involved parties, as is done in the western world, the victim can become neglected and forgotten.

Christie proposes a new court model be implemented as a method for dealing with conflicts which would be victim-centered. Christie believes that by having this new method it would allow for the involved parties to have more involvement with the legal system. This would give the parties to be able to have a more fair and equal resolution to the conflict and ensure a standard in following cases. Having a victim-centered model would all for the courts to see just how the victim’s life was impacted and what they believe would be a justice punishment. I believe that Christie has made good points in this article. Conflict can lead to developments within a society, conflict should remain as the possession to those initially involved and that legal systems should have a specific model of providing justice to victims. Conflict has the ability to stimulate growth, both between individuals and within groups. Conflicts allows for change to occur as people are forced to adapt in order to fix the situation. Conflict helps to encourage people to find solutions to their problems which in turn promotes open-mindedness and encourages communication and cooperation. The greater the conflict, the greater the impact it will have on society and it’s people. Conflicts should be seen as the property of those who initiated them and as such they should not be taken from the involved parties. The legal system’s purpose should be to provide justice to any conflict and by removing the conflicts from the parties, this can help to prevent the proper justice from occurring. If you take the Supreme Court of Canada as an example, directly involved parties are not allowed to attend their own hearings (Christie, 1977). I am unable to find how that is just to those who are involved. Conflicts should remain within the property of the parties who initiate them as it is the only way to provide proper justice. When legal systems remove an individual’s right to

participate in their own conflicts, the legal system should be viewed as not being able to provide the proper justice and as the system failing to be able to serve and protect society correctly. Instead of allowing the state to take the conflict away from the parties, I believe that the state should allow the victim and defendant to retain possession over the conflict and ongoing case. By denying the conflicts as property to the involved parties, it creates additionally dilemmas, predominately in relation to the victims. When a victim’s conflict is taken from them and given onto the state, they become not only a victim because of the offender but also a victim of the state as a result of the state denying them their right to participate in their own conflict (Christie, 1977).

Bibliography SECONDARY MATERIAL: ARTICLES N. Christie, “Conflicts as Property” (1977) 11 The British Journal of Criminology, 1-15...