Conflict as Property

In the article “Conflict as Property,” Nils Christie reflects why the conflict between two parties, the defendant and the victim has been stolen by the professional lawyers, the state and the authorities. Christie argues that the victim is thrown out of the case and he or she loses his or her say in the proceedings, because of this, the conflict case becomes between the state and one party. According to his reflection, this is not satisfying, and the only way to change this is to make sure that the proceedings of conflict are controlled by the parties that are involved, the defendant, the victim and the society (Christie, 1977). It is quite challenging to solve a conflict when one arises; this is because, without professional knowledge, we are less capable of finding ways to solve the problem. In such a situation, parties involved in the conflict seek the advice of professionals to resolve the conflict, and this increases the likelihood of handing the conflict solving proceedings to someone else. In the description of conflict as a property, Christie states that he views conflict not as a form of material compensation but as the ownership of the conflict. Once a victim loses the control of the proceedings of solving the conflict, he or she loses his or her property. In the article, he proposes an approach that can be used to remedy this situation. He argues that a new judiciary model should be adapted to be used in solving conflicts, the new model should be lay-oriented and centered on the victim. He also proposes the reorganization of the existing social systems to make sure that the professional providing help in solving the conflict does not monopolize the proceedings.

Christie is right in saying that modern societies do not value conflict enough. The community has become highly industrialized, and conflicts or legal cases have become the property of professionals like lawyers instead of being properties of the involved parties. The victim’s say in modern societies is not considered, the process of criminology has made conflicts to be taken away from the involved parties and appear as properties of lawyers. According to Christie, conflicts need to be more beneficial to the parties that are involved instead of lawyers who are handling the proceedings; this means that the criminal institutes do not need to be opened, they need to be abolished. In the modern industrialized society, there has been opening and promotion of penal institutions which make it hard for the parties that have been involved in a conflict not to benefit from the conflict. Because of this, Christie is right in stating that the modern societies do not value conflict enough, the parties that have been initially involved in the conflict do not benefit from the proceeding as they should.

In his argument, Christie presents a proposal to remedy the existing proposition, where victims do not benefit from their conflict proceedings. He proposes that the social systems and court systems need to be modified so that the victim’s say in the conflict proceeding can be considered for them to benefit. However, there are potential dangers on this argument as presented by Christie. He proposes that the court system should be restructured in such a way that the victim has a say and benefits from a conflict. It should be noted that the court systems are structured complexly that restructuring the courts may disrupt other services that are offered by the courts (Pemberton, 2016). It is quite difficult to understand the way the courts work, a fact that Christie agrees to. He says that he has limited knowledge on the way the courts operate and this means that the general public does not have an understanding of how the courts work. Restricting these systems or developing new models to handle conflicts might be more challenging to understand. Because of this, the victims might even end up being left out in the conflict. Christie also argues that lawyers are professional thieves, this argument is a potential danger as the perceptions of lawyers is bound to change.

According to Christie, in the modern highly industrialized society, conflicts are internal, and they have too little. The social systems need to be reorganized so that the conflicts can be made visible. He presents an outline of a court procedure that should be used to restore the rights of the victim to participate in the conflict. Through this outline, the views of the victim can be presented. By representing their views, we can change the focus that we have on the victims of crime; we can be able to be more remorseful and feel the experience of the victims of crime (O’Mahony & Fox, 2015). This will also change the view of the on the offenders, by having a chance to have a say, we can pity them or understand the reasons that made them commit the offense. Christie represents the strengths and weaknesses of the conflict in the proposed outline for the court system. The strengths of the position presented by Christie include; allowing the victims to benefit from the conflict and also allowing the victims to own the conflict. This way, the offender who is also an original party in the conflict will possess the conflict and will be involved in any proceeding about the conflict (Bailey, 2016). However, there are significant weaknesses which can be noted in the position that is taken by Christie. The primary weakness is no proper model is suggested to make sure that the process of restricting the social systems is adequate and that the services that are offered are not adversely impacted.

Christie suggests that the parties which are involved in the conflict need to be the primary subjects in the conflict. In this case, the parties should be able to represent themselves in the courts so that they can be able to benefit from the conflict entirely and their say can be considered when the conflict is being handled. This, however, faces a major weakness, the parties involved in a conflict might not have the capability to handle the conflict, and this is where the help of a professional is sought. On the hand, this suggestion by Christie has a significant strength, by being involved in the conflict, the parties that are included in the conflict can benefit from the conflict. Christie also suggests an approach that can be used to make conflict in the highly industrialized modern society visible as the conflict is one of the most essential elements in the community.

References

Bailey, S. (2016). Criminological literature reviews.

Christie, N. (1977). Conflicts as property. The British journal of criminology, 17(1), 1-15.

O’Mahony, D., & Fox O’Mahony, L. (2015). Crime as Property: a Restorative Perspective on the Criminalisation of squatting and the ownership of unlawful occupation.

Pemberton, A. (2016). Dangerous Victimology: My lessons learned from Nils Christie. Temida, 19(2).