How do you restore faith when it's been shattered?

As mothers we do the best that we can do for our children. We teach them to be good and kind. We teach them to be responsible and honest. We teach them to know the difference between good and bad, right from wrong. Children make mistakes. They're supposed to - it's how they learn. But they need to suffer consequences, ie be punished, and they must always apologize for their mistakes. The apology, to me, is more valuable than anything. It makes a child responsible for his or her actions - it's a way of having a child (or an adult for that matter) own up to his or her mistake.

I instill honesty, kindness and doing right to others and by others. I'm pretty tough on my kids. They know that good behavior gets rewarded and bad behavior gets punished.

Recently a child did something very wrong, so wrong that the law was brought in. This wrong behavior directly affected one of my children. I told my child not to worry, that his behavior would not go unpunished. And suddenly, despite the long arms of the law, this child will walk away with not even a slap on the wrist. A child with a troubled past. A child who has gotten into trouble before. Because this is how our system works. Any record there may or may not be on this or any child is forever locked up, meaning that as long as a child is a child, as long as the law is concerned, any wrongdoing gets written up and remains under lock and key for... forever. This allows and enables repeat offenders. I believe in second chances. I always give my own children second chances and I've been given second chances many times. But how many chances are too many?

And the reason for my discontent and absolute devastation is because no one "saw" the child do what the child did. So this begs the question, if a tree falls in a forest but no one sees or hears it fall does it mean that it never fell? If your kid stole a cookie from the cookie jar and there were crumbs leading to his bedroom, does this mean he never took the cookie? If a verbally abusive person hurls harmful words but no one sees or hears it does it mean it never happened? If a lamp is broken and there are three children in a house, and two obviously have nothing to do with it, does it mean that the third child never did it?

A crime was committed... a child goes unpunished and yet I have to pick up the pieces emotionally and financially. How can this be fair? What kind of lesson does this teach? How do I reinforce what I've been teaching my own children all along? Have the lines between right and wrong, good and bad become so blurred that they no longer exist?

I'm exhausted, exasperated and completely shattered...
What do you do to restore faith when it's been shattered? I'd really love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for sharing.

Jessica