Georgism as an economic framework is firmly rooted in justice. Naturally, economic policies derived from just principles are also just. Therefore, modern Georgists have used the principles laid out by Henry George to justify many other policies beyond land taxation that he advocated for in his day. This article will explain the core principles of Georgism from which a criminal justice system can be derived. Since Georgism is primarily economic in nature, this article will focus on the economic aspects of the criminal justice system as we have it in the west.

Georgist Principles

To understand a Georgism derived criminal justice system, we must first understand the principles underpinning Georgist policy and the context they work under. The core principle governing every economic interaction is the “labor theory of ownership” which postulates that individuals rightfully own the products of their labor (including wages) and likewise, individuals should not own things that they did not labor for.

This claim is fairly reasonable on face value, but it begs the question, how can anyone use anything that is not manmade if no individual can own them? Especially when everything that is manmade has its origin in nature.

Henry George’s conclusion is that society should collectively own all natural things; this is easy to say, but in practice his solution is to let individuals privately use the things that are collectively owned provided they compensate society for the value of what the individual has taken for themselves.

For example, land cannot be collectively owned by everyone, so instead of physically dividing parcels of land, private “owners” of land would compensate society for the value of the land they have taken away from society.

This value can be collected as a tax, a land value tax (LVT). This is what Henry George advocated for in his day, in the most classical sense, the compensation should be paid to all citizens in full by the government which is called the citizens’ dividend which will look like a variable universal basic income (UBI).

Therefore, most if not all Georgist taxation is based on compensating society for common property being used privately. This principle ties all government spending from these “compensation type” taxes to things that equally benefit all citizens.

For example, national defence benefits every citizen equally, therefore, using revenues from LVT and similar to fund defence spending is justifiable. Now, consider how this applies to the criminal justice system.

Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system is the network of government institutions that aims to maintain the social order and administer justice for wrongdoing. Broadly, the institutions that make up this network can be divided into 3 groups, and their roles in brief are as follows:

• Law Enforcement: deals with and investigates criminal incidents when they occur or when they are reported.

• Courts: determine the guilt of the accused and deal punishments through fair trials and legal processes.

• Corrections: holds accused and convicted persons and enforces court ordered punishments.

Now that the elements of the criminal justice system have been identified, we can investigate how they should be funded in a Georgist system individually.

Law enforcement directly deals with maintaining public order which benefits everyone. Similarly, investigating crimes also benefits everyone as this enables courts to remove criminals from the public or take compensation for society or offended parties through fines. Therefore, law enforcement can be justifiably funded by “compensation type” taxes such as LVT.

Courts indirectly maintain public order by sentencing criminals to be removed from society through imprisonment or sentencing criminals to do public services or pay fines (thereby compensating society). This aspect of the court system benefits everyone equally.

However, the second core purpose of the court system is to give accused persons due process (fair trial, jury, legal representation etc) which requires many resources that mostly benefit the accused and to a degree the other affected parties.

One solution is to have court fees paid by the accuser if the accused is found innocent and vice versa if the accused is found guilty. The justification for this is similar to civil cases, where the losing party pays for the legal fees of the winning party.

If the winning party is the accused (defendant) then the accuser (state/prosecution) must pay from the prosecution budget which is funded by “compensation type” taxes because prosecutors benefit everyone by taking part in the conviction process. If the winning party is the accuser (prosecution) then the convicted criminal must pay for the court fees out of his own funds, or his citizens’ dividend.

Corrections services include prison and jail facilities and their associated staff as well as handling community service, probation and rehabilitation. Most of these functions benefit everyone, but they also particularly benefit the convicted persons. Particularly, the land used for prisons is common property taken from society which requires compensation; therefore, the prisoners must be liable for the LVT associated with the land the prison is on because they are directly responsible for the requirement for prisons.

Likewise, the other functions such as probation and rehabilitation should also be funded by the prisoners. The way this is made fair is for prisoners to forfeit part of their citizens’ dividend. On the other hand, labor done by prisoners must be paid with fair wages. As a result, prisoners are not left destitute after their sentences are complete and the public is not forced to bear the whole cost of keeping and rehabilitating prisoners.

Conclusion

From the labor theory of ownership, we get compensation type taxes for privatising things that none has labored for such as LVT. As these taxes are established for compensating all citizens; government spending is restricted to things that benefit all citizens.

Applied to the criminal justice system we can conclude that its institutions can be funded by a mix of compensation type taxes and the citizens’ dividends of the people who benefit from the criminal justice system and its services where applicable. The benefits of this model is that society does not bear the cost of things that they are not responsible for or benefit from, whilst still funding essential services that benefit the whole society and those who directly utilise those services.