ABSTRACT
This chapter is about trust, its centrality to a less repressive, milder and minimalist criminal justice system, and the specific role of the state in rebuilding trust. It proceeds with a definition of trust, its relation to punishment, and four elements of civic repair that include: accountability; responsiveness; participation; and shared future. Trust helps to build the social institutions of civil society upon which peaceful, stable and efficient democracy depends. In other words, it is the social glue that holds communities and nations together. Young people, particularly poorer minority youth, experience the full force of law's repression aggressive policing, criminalization and penalization but have very little say in the actual workings of justice. The principle of parsimony may also promote trust as it reduces repressive and unnecessary penal sanctions. The principles of citizenship and human dignity can provide powerful motivators and sources of cultural and political support for major penal reform.
