In hunter-gatherer bands, in primitive villages, in stateless societies like modern Somalia, people support each other in mutual aid as the norm. Most human and animal life is in support; conflict is the exception.

In these stateless societies, when the norm is breached, the natural balance is considered to have been disturbed and it must be rebalanced.

That redress is sometimes blood-vengeance, like in the Kanun law of traditional Albania. But it’s very often compensation in the form of a transfer of assets. You broke my leg so I’m mad and angry. But then you transferred me three cows, so now I’m not angry any more. And I don’t feel you got away with it: I have my dignit of not being a little bitch who can be victimised with impunity. A variant of this system was in place essentially universally before modern states, and still is in Somalia (look up ‘xeer’). Or the tribal areas of Afghanistan are stateless and have Pashtunwali justice.

This is justice and it feels like justice. The offender is materially worse off because they offended. The victim is no worse off, they are restored. The offender’s life is not unneccessarily ruined, like it is by a criminal record; the payment is the ed of the matter; balance is restored. There are no victimless crimes; you are not punished for smoking weed; you are punished/harmed when you inflict harm on someone.

The opposite would be injustice. The characteristics of injustice would be the opposite of all this. If the hatchet is never buried it’s injustice. If one person can victimise another with impunity, in an asymmetrical relationship, it’s injustice. If the system starts harming people who have not first done harm, it’s injustice.

The purpose of policing and courts and prisons is to create injustice. It is based on the monopoly of legitimate violence. Cops can be violent with you: you can’t be violent with cops. They will make you feel small, aggrieved, victimised, and they will never rebalance the issue. If you try to rebalance it (justice), that’s what the system is designed to prevent; justice is the worst outrage against police and courts, the one thing they can never tolerate.