Torchwood Sins and Virtues Prologue: Justice in Torchwood

[crabby_lioness]

Torchwood Sins and Virtues Prologue:  Justice in Torchwood

I'm going to post about the various sins and virtues of the Torchwood characters, starting with Owen.  It didn't take me long to realize I first needed to post about justice in Torchwood.

There's more than one system of justice in the world.  Anthropologists sometimes distinguish between "village justice" and "imperial justice".  Village justice is used in relatively small, isolated villages.  Imperial justice is used when  the area is part of a larger empire.  In village justice the emphasis is on restoring harmony within the group as quickly as possible.  In Imperial justice the emphasis is on demonstrating the Law of the Empire (and by extension the Power of the Emperor.)

In village justice a criminal is punished by paying their debt to the group in front of the group.  In Imperial justice a criminal is punished by the Empire demonstrating it's power to take them far away and punish them somewhere out of sight.  In village justice the worst punishment possible is exile, banishment from the village.  In Imperial justice the worst punishment possible is death.  The villagers fear exile as a fate worse than death.

Torchwood 3 works on village justice, not on Imperial justice.  It is "outside the government" so relying on the government for justice would be allowing another party a toehold into their affairs.  The emphasis is on getting back to normal as quickly as possible.   The criminal is not sent away to be punished, but must work out their punishment by serving the group in front of the group.  And the most feared punishment, the one that terrifies Suzie, Ianto, Gwen, and Owen, is not death but exile.

No one who works for Torchwood fears death that much.  They face death every day.  But the thought of being banished from the Team almost drives Suzie into hysterics in Everything Changes.  Ianto shows no fear of dying in Cyberwoman, but voluntarily shows up to work out his punishment afterwards, an act which Jack accepts.  In the End of Days Owen fears exile far worse than death or Weevils.

In Combat, when Gwen is told to spend more time with Rhys, she reacts as if she is being punished by the group.  Jack obviously doesn't intend it to be a punishment.  He's trying to help her.  But Gwen has already assimilated the values of the group and takes is as if it were a punishment, for banishment is the worst punishment of all in the village.

Of course part of this is retcon.   With banishment comes losing their memories, and that's something to fear.  But Suzie wasn't afraid of retcon in Everything Changes.  She was reacting to leaving the group, not losing her memories.  And Gwen didn't even know that exile = retcon when she clearly suffered from her time spent away from the Team in Combat.

The reason I spell this out is because some people have said that there is no justice in Torchwood, that no one is ever punished for their crimes.  That is incorrect.  They are punished according to a village justice system.  But people who have only seen Imperial justice, and who only recognize Imperial justice, sometimes miss what's going down.

Comments

[eumenidis.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with anthropological classes of justice systems, & I'm sure the definitions are more complex than the brief description you're able to give here, but I agree that a village justice system is applied to the members of Torchwood. I can see, though, why some people would feel that there was no justice in Torchwood; long before the junior members' mutiny, each one had committed offences for which a less lenient village chieftain (ie, Jack) could have applied the maximum penalty.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. The maximum penalty was usually reserved for multiple murderers, and I can think of one case where it was only used for serial killers.

[eumenidis.livejournal.com]

I assume you're referencing actual field studies. I'm more familiar with archaeology, & civilizations populous enough that the Imperial form of justice would be the one applied, but I seem to vaguely recall that different cultures varied in the strictness or imposing penalties. However, I can't recall anything specific, so I defer to your more definitive knowledge.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

Multiple murders or blasphemy, I should have said. It would be interesting to see what Torchwood would consider blasphemy.

[eumenidis.livejournal.com]

What would Torchwood consider blasphemy...now THAT is a scary thought. (& do I detect plot bunnies lurking in the high grass?)

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

Ooo, bunnies!

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

Which group of societies are you referencing here? That "maximum penalty" thing seems very limited in scope - I can think of archaeo/historical societies where sexual offences also received the severest penalty.