of justice were how to make things better for everyone involved?
Justice and Restoration
Changamire offers a vision for how to do this. In the wake of the violence and rebellion in “A Nation Under Our Feet,” Changamire says, “Restoration is what is needed now. Restoration for our country.”12 He gathers not just the powers that be (T’Challa the king and Aneka the rebel leader) but also ordinary citizens traumatized by the war, so that together they can navigate a path forward. Their interest is not retribution or reparation, but rather restorative justice .
Criminologist Howard Zehr says we can distinguish retributive justice from restorative justice by looking at how they understand crime, criminals, and victims. Retributive justice defines crime as a violation of laws, and therefore sees the state itself as the victim of crime. Restorative justice, on the other hand, defines crime in terms of harm – not in the abstract sense as an offense to the state, but harm to real people and real-world relationships. In retributive justice, criminals are law-breakers by definition and therefore deserve punishment. In restorative justice, criminals count among the people harmed by injustice. Restorative justice reminds us that people can be wrongdoers and victims at the same time, and it recognizes that oftentimes it’s because people are hurt that they hurt others.13 Concerned with identifying the root causes of injustice, restorative justice wants to figure out who’s a stakeholder in the situation, and then involve all the stakeholders collectively in setting things right.
Because retribution has to do with what people deserve, not what people need, you can do retributive justice without asking any questions about political power or social position. That’s not possible with restorative justice. If you want to restore a community that’s been torn apart, you can’t ignore the fact that some people are more powerful than others. You have to acknowledge things like racism and sexism. And you can’t pretend people are just one thing: every criminal is also someone’s child, someone’s neighbor, maybe someone’s employee or employer, maybe a parent or caretaker.
In fact, most of us are technically criminals. (How many laws have you broken?) Think about how your community would react to losing you. Sending someone to prison doesn’t punish one person; it creates a hole in society, a hole other people have to step in to fill. Put enough people in prison and entire communities can collapse. That’s not justice. From the standpoint of restorative justice, it’s another form of harm, this time inflicted by the state. So, when Killmonger wakes up handcuffed to a hospital bed, restorative justice would have T’Challa say, “You’re no use to us locked up. How are we going to work together to heal all the damage we’ve caused?”
Sending Killmonger to prison takes away not only his freedom but also any ability he might have to repair the damage he’s done to other people. It strips him of his responsibility to right past wrongs, and in doing so it weakens the community as a whole. Moreover, it also absolves Wakanda of its responsibility to repair the damage it has done to him. Remember, Killmonger didn’t pick Wakanda at random; he’s been wronged, and he needs healing too. Putting him in a cell doesn’t address the root problem, it just sweeps the problem under the rug.
So, if it’s not going to throw him in prison, what is Wakanda to do? Changamire would have Killmonger sit down with the people he’s wronged, listen to how they’re hurting, listen to what they need, and work together with them to figure out how to restore them to their whole and healthy state. He’d put T’Challa at the table too, not to oversee the proceedings but because even the king must be held accountable for repairing the damage that’s been done. Royalty doesn’t count for much in restorative justice; what really matters is healing.
If Wakandan justice really is “more civilized,” it will acknowledge an inescapable but uncomfortable truth: when a government imprisons people, it sucks talent and energy out of communities even as those communities try to recover from the harm caused by crime. Those left behind have fewer resources to heal their communal wounds and bounce back to where they were.14 Which raises an interesting question: does Wakanda need prisons at all?
Justice Transformed
Prison abolitionists have shown that prisons don’t make people safer.15 Even so, maybe a prisonless country still sounds like fantasy to you. How would this country maintain law and order? What would prevent people from running around robbing and killing each other?
These are good questions, but they’re short-sighted. They assume criminality is a problem of the individual, but what if it’s not? What if it’s a structural problem, rooted not in one person’s actions but in the social institutions that make such actions appealing?
The truth is we already live in a world where criminals can do as they please, so long as they’re powerful enough that no one can hold them accountable. This, too, is an indicator that the problem is structural, not individual. Retributive justice only makes sense within that flawed structure: it sees justice as punitive, and relies on government to curb criminality by meting out punishment. The transformative justice movement says real justice happens when we examine the root causes – usually social institutions – that create widespread inequity and harm. If we can transform those, we can transform society itself. We can break down all the social barriers that constrain people. In the transformative justice movement, the work of justice is the work of building our capacity to take care of each other, as ordinary people in ordinary communities.
Do that and you can abolish the prisons. When the people are accountable to each other, not merely to the state, then they can fully reclaim their own humanity. Their king isn’t above them and their criminals aren’t beneath them; their basic assumption is that all people have intrinsic value. When T’Challa says, “Wakandan justice is more civilized,” this would be the dream: a country whose justice relies not on punitive measures but accountability among its people. In this system, Erik Killmonger isn’t a menace you need to keep in a super-prison like the Raft or Prison 42.16 He’s a phenomenal talent with a keen interest in building up Black communities, a guy you really want back on your side.
If a nation without prisons still sounds like fantasy-land to you – maybe even a dystopian fantasy – keep in mind that for much of American history, abolishing slavery sounded like pure fantasy. Just because an unjust institution seems ironclad doesn’t mean it can’t fall. And imagine how Avengers: Infinity War could have ended if Wakanda ran on transformative justice instead of retributive justice. Thanos comes to town looking for the Mind Stone, but he’s too late. N’Jadaka (who has renounced the mercenary name Killmonger) stands proudly with Shuri in her lab, where the two of them have combined their collective genius to destroy the Mind Stone. Maybe Thanos wants to take his revenge, but now Vision is still in the game and Wakanda has two defenders fueled by the Heart-Shaped Herb. Behind them stands the united strength of all five Wakandan tribes. They didn’t unite to fight the Mad Titan. No, they’re united because they’ve deconstructed all the artificial walls between them, and now they all recognize each other as stakeholders in a just society. They’re prepared to take care of each other come hell or high water.
And then, before anyone comes to blows, T’Challa tells Thanos there’s no need to kill him or jail him. “Wakandan justice is more civilized. You’ll see.”
Notes
1 1. Black Panther, vol. 2, #1 and #3, 1998.
2 2. In fairness, the country is doing much better lately. The motto at the gate of the Wakandan embassy in New York City now reads, “Awazili N’Gyato Imo Sabolari,”
