ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, we covered the way major wisdom traditions and religions of the world have incorporated the principles of peace, love, and social justice into their messages. The peacemaking perspective is first and foremost a personal philosophy that starts in the heart of the individual. This chapter, however, extends the peacemaking perspective beyond the individual to the institutional and the cultural context. It is argued that for the peacemaking perspective to be effective, we need an overarching philosophy that allows individual goodness and integrity to be carried on in collective actions, and gives us hope that our institutions and society can be transformed and come to a point of more effectively addressing the problems of crime, the criminal justice system, and corrections. The individual is the necessary starting point. Personal change, however, must lead to social and institutional transformation to achieve our goals of peace and social justice.
