Where Is The Justice?

One of the big items occupying the news cycle in the last couple of weeks is the murder of Iryna Zarutska. She fled Ukraine in hopes of finding a better life in America, only to be stabbed to death on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina. But it wasn’t her brutal murder that drew people’s attention to the case. It wasn’t that she left a war-torn country only to die in America. It wasn’t because she was just 22 years old. It wasn’t because of how gruesome and brutal the killing was. It wasn’t even because mainstream media wasn’t covering the story. No, this news story got everybody’s attention because of who killed her and his past. The “alleged” murderer was 34-year-old Decarlos Brown, and he has quite the criminal record. According to Newsweek, “Records show that Brown has been arrested 14 times in over a decade and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He has previously been convicted of felony larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and communicating threats, leading to a six-year prison sentence in 2015 for incidents dating to 2013 and 2014. He was released in 2020; then, months later, he was charged with assaulting his sister.” A man who was arrested 14 times with a mental disorder and a violent history was running loose in society. This is unacceptable. One of the God given directives for the government is to protect its people from evil, and the governing body in Charlotte has failed its people.

The Bible is very clear that one of the roles for the government is to justly take care of the evil in the world. Romans 13:2–5 says, “Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.” Then in 1 Peter 2:13–14 “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.”

But the failure by the Charlotte government is more than just people falling asleep at the wheel. If only it were so simple. No, the real problem is deeper than this. What has caused this tragedy is a belief system. An idea. A philosophical viewpoint that is different from the bible’s. A progressive and sinful worldview has led to the unjust handling of criminals. The two big problems of their worldview are that they view man as inherently good. And secondly, they see bad acts as a medical problem, not a sin problem. Therefore, criminals are just decent people who need proper social work, and it would be cruel to incarcerate them. It is inhumane to give them jail terms or executions. No, the merciful thing to do would be to “cure” them of their ills. Liberal politicians believe they are doing the humane and merciful thing by not punishing the guilty. This is why we see so many liberal municipalities defund police, have cashless bail, randomly release prisoners, give more rights to prisoners in jail, and not have the death penalty. Just earlier this year, a judge had Brown released without bail from one of his criminal charges, even though his mother pleaded with authorities that he was violent at home.

Conservative politician Dusty Deevers, a Christian, said on this particular crime, “This is why government must be a terror to evildoers. Iryna Zarutska is dead because North Carolina officials caught and released this murderer 14 times. What fear of the law could such a man possibly have? You cannot be more compassionate than God. The "empathy" to the guilty shown by Soros DAs is cruelty to the innocent. The idea that you can social work and medicate your way out of a society with people like this is liberal fantasy.”

CS Lewis also spoke to this in an essay titled The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment. In the essay, he addresses the progressive viewpoint of trying to cure criminals instead of punishing them. This is what he refers to as the humanitarian theory. He says, “I believe that the "Humanity" which it claims is a dangerous illusion and disguises the possibility of cruelty and injustice without end. The Humanitarian theory removes from Punishment the concept of [the person getting what they deserve]. But the concept of [a person getting what they deserve] is the only connecting link between punishment and justice. There is no sense in talking about a "just deterrent" or a "just cure". We demand of a deterrent not whether it is just but whether it will deter. We demand of a cure not whether it is just but whether it succeeds. Thus, when we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere object, a patient, a "case". The Humanitarian theory, then, removes sentences from the hands of jurists whom the public conscience is entitled to criticize and places them in the hands of technical experts whose special sciences do not even employ such categories as rights or justice.”

This is exactly what has happened in our society. Ideas have consequences, and our philosophies have led to letting violent people out onto the street. Our twisted way of being merciful has led to the innocent being preyed on by criminals. We are no longer looking at criminal acts as evil, but as someone being “sick”. We think our job is to “cure” people. To make them “better”. The criminal justice system aims to rehabilitate them and then allow them back into society. But when you are not looking at the problem properly, how can you begin to solve it? Does it look like our efforts are helping in reducing crime? No. And why not? Because we do not seek justice. Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.”  And so many in our society are fully set on doing evil. When the diagnosis is all wrong, so will the cure be. The problem with criminals, the problem with evil, is spiritual, not medical. It is because people are inherently bad that we have crime. It is not because we are basically good and just need some corrective therapy and a few pills.

Not only that, but rehabilitation is not the government’s job. Where in scripture are we ever told that it is our political leader's job to “cure” those with social “illnesses”? But maybe that is where the problem really lies: the government is playing God. The government is trying to “save” the criminal. Yet it is the Lord and the Lord only who could ever “cure” what ails lawbreakers. Because He is the only one where salvation is found. And while trying to appear merciful to the criminal, they are inviting evil on the innocent. Just like what we saw here with Iryna. Andrew Walker said, “Iryna Zarutska should be alive. Mercy without justice is not mercy—it's surrender to criminal anarchy. The murder of Iryna Zarutska is exactly what C.S. Lewis warned about with progressive theories of punishment: when sin and evil are treated as illnesses to be rehabilitated, justice gives way to false conceptions of 'compassion,' the innocent are harmed, and evil thrives.” This is the problem with our criminal justice system. We seek to cure instead of seeking justice. Proverbs 17:15 says, “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.” Charlotte, and many liberal municipalities like her, are an abomination to God.