Could it?

I want justice.

It’s the reason I read crime, it’s the reason I watch crime, and it’s most certainly the reason I write crime.  I want justice in a world where there seems to be too little of it to go around.

And within those fictional worlds of crime and punishment, I know for fairly certain that there will not be one without the other.

Unlike the real world.

It is an unfortunate fact that every day crimes go unpunished, that the guilty walk free from our legal system, and that the innocent are left to pay the price and wonder why.

This happens within our fictional worlds too, but there will always be another kind of justice to take over should that system fail to punish the guilty.

Poetic Justice.

A criminal walks free from court with a smug smile in his victory, only to be run over by a truck/bus/tanker - take your pick really.  Something befitting the nature of the crime, possibly with a hint of irony that brings a smile to the face.

Something that reaps the crime upon the criminal, and they get to know what it feels like, for the pain they have caused to others.  Ignoring the fact that they are probably so disturbed as to not care, it can be quite therapeutic for the reader, and often doubly so for the writer.

A pyromaniac who burns people alive in their homes, gets caught out by his own fire and it burns him alive instead.   

Aha, we say, he had that coming, and having his own evil turn itself upon him is an added bonus.

Someone who rapes and tortures others and ends up in prison, at the mercy of another person who enjoys doing that very same thing to them.   

Aha, we say, you reap what you sow.

Eye for an eye, basically.

What happens when the inflictor of pain is one of the good guys?  Does it depend on whom they are inflicting pain, as to whether it makes them bad or not?

A cop who beats up criminals, that’s okay.

A cop who beats up an innocent person, not okay.

A cop who inadvertently kills an innocent person, definitely a bad guy.  But the innocent person was not so innocent and had a deep dark secret of evil in their bloody basement.

Aha, the cop is good after all.

The cop trusted their instincts and their methods are vindicated.  They may make mistakes at times, but our cops in the fictional world are generally on the side of right.

Even if they bypass all legal avenues and stomp on the human rights of criminals like they were ridding the world of ants, it’s okay because we know that they have a moral code, hidden somewhere inside their chinked and rusted armour.

They will always do what is right, even if it seems to be morally questionable at the time.

We trust that they are exacting the justice and the punishment that befits the crimes.  We trust that their strong sense of what is truly right and wrong will give us the justice we demand.

And if they are unable to exact justice themselves, then poetic justice will step in and do the job for them.

We the readers have witnessed the criminal's behaviour and do hereby judge that they are guilty of their crimes and sentence them to the punishment that best serves our own vengeance.

That’s right, vengeance.

We take the law into our own hands and we live it through the actions of others, exacting fresh vengeance upon all those we deem fit to receive it.

And within the confines of the fictional criminal’s world, this is allowed.

Vengeance can be as exacting and as bloody as we deem fit, sometimes the bloodier the better, as we get back at all those who have hurt us in the past.  We can be as torturous to them as we can stand to be because they deserve it.

The end justifies the means.

But what about a criminal who hides?  One who exacts his fury on the world around him through the actions of others, and persuades them to kill and maim for him.

The legal system cannot touch him, there is no proof.

No-one can get near him.

Nor find him.

How is one to deal with a criminal such as this, who refuses to come out and face the world for the things they have done?  How do we deal with the frustration of being unable to punish this criminal?

In the books and TV shows we send in a crack squad of military types, lead by a maverick called Jack, who has a heart of gold and would die for any one of his men.  Someone who has been hurt by said criminal, and who probably lost a family member to their cowardly actions.

They overcome many obstacles to reach the hiding place of this criminal, face them down, have a manly conversation about honour and courage, and realise that this particular criminal will never be convicted in a court of law.

So they take the law into their own hands.

And they kill him.

Not a decision of their own making, of course, in spite of the family member lost to this despicable criminal, but one sanctioned and even encouraged by their own government.

So they kill the criminal and become heroes.

Everyone who has ever been hurt by the criminal feels a sense of satisfaction, of justice, of having their vengeance sated for a fraction of a second.

There is no need to worry about his human rights, because he wasn't really human.

 The criminal is dead, and justice has been done. 

And in the fictional world of crime and punishment, the story comes to an end, as the heroes and villains go about their business once more, without the ramifications of moral lines being crossed because they are not in the real world.

Fictional stories of murdering criminals because they are seen to have deserved it live only in the pages of books, or the chunks of TV between the advert breaks.

This story could never be condoned in the real world.

Or could it?