Justice as a concept in the abstract and justice within the context of government, are two entirely different entities. Justice in the abstract is some theoretical point of balance between crime and punishment. In the world which we live I don't feel anyone who is fit to judge how many years of a man's life a given crime is worth. No one is qualified to bring down that or any other of the irrelevant sentences which are dealt out by government (not to imply this is the fault of any governing body, merely that there is no wrong which you can do to the criminal to recoup the victim). We are not accurate enough with our guesses through screens of our perspective to take away the freedom of people based on what we feel is just. Such wild stabs are thinly veiled attempts at vengeance, rather than justice. Justice as decided by the government however, must be more tangible. Within the context of the government justice is the least severe punishment that will prevent the criminal from ever repeating the crime. It is this form of justice that is most present to us, and the form which beckons the most scrutiny. .
The citizen has given the government its power, and in return the government has given the citizen rights. .
It is the primary duty of the government to protect these rights. It is this responsibility of protecting the citizen, and the government's self preservation that leads to the most prevalent flaws of government's quest for justice. The overwhelming propensity of government is to administer punishments much too harsh. These punishments do indeed deter all but the truly desperate, effectively creating less of these crimes. However counter intuitive it may be this must be ignored as a factor. In the judicial system the government should not operate under the principle of greater good, but the in the service of the relevant individual. If the government can succeed in creating laws that will deter the criminals, the laws will shape themselves into justice in the form of the people that they define.