Everyone has his or her own personal idea of trust and, given the familiar usage of the word “trust” as honesty or reliability (as in “If Ron says he’ll do it, you can trust him” for example), all of your comments are very well taken.

But in the course of my book, I try to develop a unique concept of trust that is a bit different from this familiar usage- one that is very fundamental to life in society. It’s what I call “the presumption of reciprocity in others.” From this perspective of trust, the role of community is absolutely crucial.

In the aftermath of crime, we ask “what must be done to restore the victim’s trust in the offender and in society?” and “what must the offender do to re-establish a basic level of trust that will permit him to re-enter the community as our moral equal?” These conditions for restoring trust become the pathway back to healing for the victim and the pathway back to social re-integration for the offender.

I developed this thesis over the course of several chapters, each building upon the other, so that the meaning does become crystal clear. Trust me!

If I were wealthy enough, I’d love to send you (and any other interested reader) a copy of my book so that you can better appreciate how the restoration of personal and social trust is central to the work we undertake in attempting to repair the harm of crime to individuals and to communities.

But since that’s not possible, I hope I’ve tweaked your curiosity enough to go out and buy a copy yourself!

If you do, please let’s carry on the dialogue! (Feel free to contact be at rdl@berkeleycollege.edu). It’s really important to me to get feedback from RJ practitioners and everyone with a desire for fundamental criminal justice reform.

Best wishes,

Ross London

· Trust once lost cannot be commanded or even given – it can only be earned

· If there is any breach after it has been earned it must be reearned (a much more difficult task)

· Trust is required on both sides – not just in respect of the offender – and that would require the earning of trust by community, family and other institutions (an immense task)

· Trust is really a bi product of something else – ie the established restoration of an offender together with the restoration of those who have suffered at his hands

I believe the primary goal of criminal justice systems should be to restore, not trust, but community. This may imply the recovery of a level of trust but the primary concern is the recovery of a degree of acceptance of the offender as an individual which is not conditional on approval of his behavior. Once a sense of belonging is established (it may never have existed before) behavioural changes may occur which may in turn lead to some recovery of trust. In the meantime the law may need to exact protective measures against the offender which will enable the community to be reasonably safe.

Prison is not usually a reasonable mode to work towards establishment of community (although it can be used to control moves towards that end). Generally prison (as currently used) is destructive of nearly every community structure to which a prisoner may have belonged.

The following quotation (from The Quest for the Grail by Richard Rohr) demonstrates these views

“When you truly and fully belong, it is so natural to believe and to become. The tragedy of our time is that so very many do not belong (no parents, no community, no tradition). No wonder it is so hard to believe, and survival takes the place of becoming”

Michael Cockram

STP facilitator WA

I wholeheartedly agree. If only society thought this same way. However, how easy is it to have offenders understand and embrace being trustworthy when many of them have been abused and let down by their own family and friends?

Society looks at offenders with shock when they break laws and their trust, yet these offenders have had next to no solid moral examples to follow.

I hope Ross London catch up with your great idea of a Little Book of Crime, Punishment and Restorative Justice.

Trust is a beautiful word that expresses the result of meeting human needs. Mary Clark already said it, there won’t be peace in the world if all human needs are not met.

My concerns with the unintended consecuences of the application of restorative justice is just that, that in the delicate marriage of state and restorative programs, we end up with application that forget what it takes to built trust, that is, to really meet human needs.

And that is why I also believe in Circles as the most restorative justice process. As RH practitioners we need to create spaces of healing, where the traumatized brain can heal, where the web of relations be restored, where we can see ourselves and others in our best selves, conscious of the needs of mind, heart, body and spirit. Then trust will flourish.