What Is Nils Christie Conflicts As Property

The article Conflicts as Property by Nils Christie was published in the British Journal of Criminology in 1977. Christie suggests in this article that the conflicts of the individual are a valuable property to be owned and that in highly industrialized societies, conflicts have largely become the possessions of legal professionals rather than of those who are directly involved. Christie views this system, which most western legal systems follow, as one that should be abolished in order to more efficiently rehabilitate the offender through reconciliation with the victim as well as those within the community. This summary will outline Christie’s arguments as to why the current legal practices of the justice system are harmful to society as well
Christie has accomplished this by exposing some of the underlying negative traits of western legal systems, thus forcing the reader to consider the legitimacy of them; However, he did not provide enough empirical evidence to support his claim that the type of court system he suggested would be possible to adopt successfully. While Christie does acknowledge the hindrances to the development of lay-oriented courts within western culture, his arguments for its potential success are more idealistic than fact based. He only provides examples of true local/lay-oriented courts in non-western cultures, making it difficult to asses whether or not it would be plausible here. A system of restorative process for youths was conducted in New Zealand and like Canada, follows the Westminster system – making it a good candidate for comparison. Although New Zealand is the most well developed example of a restorative justice system such as the one Christie proposes in the article, research shows that “It has been less successful in achieving goals of enhancing the wellbeing of the young people who enter the system and ensuring that they have the skills to be effectively reintegrated into society as people with a potential to contribute to society as well as to benefit from the rewards of participation”. Christie
When this occurs, victims may not experience restorative