Breaking your reply down in proper English language logic, the word "criminal" seems to be an adjective describing "'justice' system" - ie, the justice system is criminal in its effect/intent. Do I understand this correctly?
Well that's one MAIN way to read it. Sorry, I'm fresh out of fancy prizes. It is nice to have someone finally get that meaning (though there may have been others who simply didn't state it).
The other way is that there isn't any justice in the criminal justice system, hence justice is placed in quotes.
I haven't settled on one over the other yet. However, as I continue in my CCJ training I'm more and more convinced that it's just a big dog and pony show intended to make us THINK we have the system our founding fathers designed. I assure you, nothing is further from the truth.
Let's say you're a working siff, barely able to pay the bills and keep a roof over your head and food on the table. Ooops, you just got served papers in civil court and you have 30 days to "respond". Oh crud, you have to pay (a lot of) money to file the response......and if you don't file teh response, the otheside wins by default. Yeah that's fair.
In criminal, there are "over 4500 federal crimes". Now the reason the number is "over 4500" is that even the federal government, after a 2 year research program, couldn't identity how many federal crimes were on the books but identified at least 4500.
And don't even try to figure out how the "modern courts" have constructed the exemptions to the fourth that are allowed to fly these days.
Yeah, I'm leaning towards the adjective use of the word criminal.