The Influence of Individual and Social Psychology and History on The State of The Justice System
Civil institutions naturally develop from the desire of people and the necessity for them to either protect themselves or create an order, while establishing the rule of law and the development of rights and justice. However, the system of justice did not emerge from an empty spot with no background on the base of it. The ideas of what is just and what is not were changing and developing throughout the entire human history and were largely dependent on the traits of social and psychological development of the human communities in general and individuals in particular. For instance, due to the strong belief of the people in the Middle Ages that redheaded women were witches, it was just and correct to burn them on fires because of the suspicion in witchcraft (Gardner, Gerald Brosseau, p.25). However, modern society would not approve it and will actually consider such actions a crime. Thus, even though the justice system was at all times supposed to protect human rights and punish crimes, the development of its core principles highly depends on the historic events, as well as the social and psychological changes in the communities because those communities are actually the institutions which define justice.
The first aspect that has defined the justice system for time of development of the human history is the individual psychology. It is also the factor that defines the general tendencies inside the justice system as well. The thing is, individuals create both society and history, and the moral ideas of just and unjust actions also exist only in human minds. Thus, the principles that create the justice system start to emerge from the moral principles of particular humans. For instance, there were times in the American history when slavery was a completely common practice, and only a few of the individuals thought that it was inhuman. However, when the time passed, those individuals managed to influence the whole society to change its beliefs (Alexander, Michelle, p.17). Thus, because of the shifts in individual and social psychology, there been huge changes implied to the justice system, so in modern world slavery is considered a crime.
However, individuals cannot create any social institution without the presence and involvement of other individuals, thus, justice system also highly depends on the social psychology. Because of the fact that society has a large influence on the individuals as well as creating general moral norms and laws. For instance, there have been cases when society did not agree with the decisions made by the justice system representatives, which later led to either changing the court decision or different outcomes of the similar cases. However, as Philip Zimbardo puts it, the world and society are filled with both good and evil, which means that, depending on the situation, the society can change its beliefs to completely different ideas (Zimbardo, Philip G, p.3). However, sometimes the society can be puzzled by …
