Only the hardest heart will not have been moved to laughter by the sight of Paris Hilton, multimillionaire and professional nobody being dragged back to prison in tears. This followed an unseemly scuffle where the local sheriff, Lee Baca, who was coincidentally a recipient of a large election donation from Hilton's billionaire grandfather, had released her in express defiance of the judge's ruling. Hilton had been jailed for a violation of her probation. Her offence was to drive despite being disqualified for several drink driving offences recklessly endangering people's lives in the process.
Why should socialists pay any attention to the misfortunes of this particular representative of the bourgeoisie? Well, the fact is that the case highlights in stark relief the nature of justice under capitalism. In theory, under the norms of bourgeois legality, all are equal in the eyes of the law. In reality, as Marx wryly observed, this means that the rich man has the same right to sleep under a bridge as a poor man. Some may see the final end of this saga as proof that justice prevails: after all, despite all her connections poor Paris will have to serve out the rest of her jail term. The reality is a little more complex.
Consider the fate of a working class woman jailed under capitalist justice. At the opposite end of the scale from Ms. Hilton, munching on French pastries brought to the prison by her assistants, are the large number of Aboriginal women languishing in Australian prisons, often for non-payment of fines. A recent report by the Law Commission of New South Wales suggests that the number of indigenous female prisoners in NSW increased by 168% in the period between 1987-1991. The report concludes that “there has been a general increase in the imprisonment of indigenous people in Australia”. However, that increase has disproportionately impacted on indigenous women. Unlike Ms. Hilton who will emerge from her unpleasant experience and resume the high-life, perhaps 'writing' a book about her ordeal and further profiting from it, the effect of imprisonment on these women is devastating. As they are in many cases the primary carers the effects are also traumatic upon their children and the broader community, thus exacerbating the cycle of crime and poverty.
Or closer to Ms. Hilton, let us consider the plight of African-American and Hispanic prisoners in U.S. jails. The American Civil Liberties Union claim that despite making up only 13% of the U.S population, African-Americans constitute 43% of persons executed since the death penalty was re-instituted in 1976 and 55% of those currently on death row. Although the overwhelming number of murder victims are themselves black, 80% of capital cases involve white victims. If falsely accused, your chances of survival are a racial and class lottery. Your chances of getting convicted and being executed largely depend upon your access to expensive legal representation.
The law in the United States and elsewhere in the capitalist world is a multi-million dollar business. In the same week that Hilton began her brief incarceration, a U.S. judge took out a US$64 million lawsuit against a small Korean dry-cleaning firm because they lost his trousers, claiming that their advertising was misleading and citing the deep emotional trauma that this has caused him. Despite the fact that he is representing himself, he is also claiming for legal fees!
Reformists in the labour movement might note these facts but put them down to the excesses of a few individuals. However, the systemic racism in the U.S. and Australian legal systems are endemic to the system. Marxists understand that the primary role of the state is not protecting the liberties of the individual but the continued maintenance of capitalist property relations. Generally this entails mobilising the full might of the legal systems against the working class, such as has recently occurred in Brazil with the capitalist court's actions against the CIPLA workers. From time to time the legal system will be utilised to rein in individuals such as Hilton whose exploits risk exposing the true nature of capitalism. Rich parasites such as her can easily be sacrificed. Such actions help to preserve the veneer of legality which masks the capitalist state machinery. But once the real interests of capitalism are threatened, such as by the worker occupation of factories in South America, judges reveals their true character as lackeys of the bourgeoisie.
Where is the justice in a system that crushes the human spirit under the accumulated weight of racism, poverty and the dull monotony of menial labour? Where is the justice in Guantanamo bay? Where is the justice in the fact that your chances of being judicially electrocuted or slowly poisoned to death by the most advanced country on the planet depend largely upon whether your ancestors were slaves or slaveowners? Only under socialism, can we truly achieve justice, in which not only are we all equal in the eyes of the law but also in the eyes of our fellow men and women. Under socialism the grinding poverty that forces many into crime will be abolished and offenders will be treated humanely and re-integrated into a life of productive and creative labour. Perhaps we might even find useful work for Paris.
