Trust in justice – how much do we need?

In contemporary societies, trust seems slowly but inevitably to vanish. Governments deplore the erosion of trust in criminal justice, and search for remedies that can restore it for an increasingly distrustful public. This seminar will track the history of trust, and identify those factors that have produced trust in general and in criminal justice institutions in particular. It will then turn to the decline of trust in criminal justice institutions across a selection of countries, focussing on the UK and the US. Finally the comparative advantages (or disadvantages) of trust (or distrust) in criminal justice for levels of punitiveness and imprisonment are analysed. We need less trust in justice than we think we do.

Susanne Karstedt is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of Leeds. She has published on numerous subjects ranging from comparative crime and justice studies, democracy, crime and justice, emotions and criminal justice, to transitional justice and middle class crime.