Justice, faith, and interfaith: The relevance of faith and interfaith relations to crime prevention

Abstract

The concept of justice is both simple and intuitive, and yet also highly complex. In the latter context, this chapter explores the relevance of religion to justice and crime prevention. Among 7 billion human beings, the majority identify themselves as belonging to a particular religious tradition, such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Jainism, indigenous traditions, etc. With a global resurgence of religion, along with an increase in religiously plural societies, there is growing awareness of religion as a significant factor-sometimes positive, sometimes negative-in the lives of individuals, families, societies and nations. As such, increased awareness of religion as it functions in society and the world is needed. This is occurring in a variety of fields, such as international relations, conflict mediation, peace studies, and criminology. In addition, there is widespread recognition that interreligious dialogue and cooperation are necessary if we are to build social capital and establish a "radius of trust" on both local and global levels. The UN has become increasingly appreciative of interreligious dialogue, recognizing its relevance to peace, security, human development and the quality of life for succeeding generations.