ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests a variety of ways in which the sub-cultural delinquent senses injustice. It focuses on three components of justice: cognizance, consistency, and competence. Antagonism takes the form of a jaundiced view of officials, a view which holds that their primary function is not the administration of justice, but the perpetration of injustice. The delinquent's sense of injustice is heightened by his standards. The major dimensions of justice are known to most members of society in a crude and intuitive way because justice is a crucial aspect of the common sense of modern democratic nations. The sense of injustice is conveyed through the collective and selective experiences encountered by contemporary delinquents and their local predecessors. The sense of inconsistency is likely to be heightened when legal agents possess great discretion or when the principles that guide decision are diffusely or mysteriously delineated.
