The Root Cause of Violent Crime Is Not What We Think It Is
There is a prevailing narrative about crime that positions bad people as the problem and toughness — in the form of police and prisons — as the solution. It’s emotionally powerful, enough to make politicians allocate money for more cops and more jails in order to avoid being labeled weak, or worse, pro-crime. But policies like this have little if any effect on violent crime, in part because they do not address what causes the problem.
If throwing money at police and prisons made us safer, we would probably already be the safest country in the history of the world. We are not, because insufficient punishment is not the root cause of violence. And if someone is talking about how tough they are and how scared you should be, they care more about keeping you scared than keeping you safe.
The tough-on-crime narrative acts like a black hole. It subsumes new ideas and silences discussions of solutions that are already making a difference in people’s lives. And it provides bottomless succor to politicians who are more interested in keeping themselves in power than keeping people safe.
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https://www.wfaa.com/amp/article/news/local/online-child-predators-rise-of-these-criminals-vigilantes-trying-to-catch-them-legal-battle-that-follows/287-4ef0592d-7a7a-4a98-bcf9-771a1c09d4d8
The Sex Offender Registry Failed Them: Sexual abuse of female inmates plagues federal prisons, Senate report finds
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/senate-report-documents-widespread-sexual-abuse-female-inmates/story?id=95157791
Don’t they bother checking the registry before hiring correctional officers?
No because because the prison guards were never on the registry to begin with because they were not previously convicted of rape/sexual assault/sexual battery.
Thats why both the Repeat Offense and the Sex Offense Registries has Failed us. Thats why Capital Punishment/the Death Penalty has Failed us. Thats why the Civil Commitment of those Convicted of Sexual Predation and those Deemed Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity has Failed us. Thats why Natural Life Sentences Without Parole has Failed us. Thats why the Direct Filing Against Minors To Prosecute And Convict Them As Adults has Failed us. Thats why Minimum Mandatory Sentencing has Failed us. Thats why the Indefinite Closed Management/the Indefinite Solitary Confinement of Incarcerated Prisoners has Failed us. You cant use More Violence to Solve Violence.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/officials-considering-early-release-for-victims-of-sex-assault-in-federal-prison/ar-AA15co2T?ocid=windirect&cvid=6d9c49d8d81c449da1510cab49388378
A mental health first approach is absolutely what we need to prevent future crimes but it would take political bravery and a ton of patience. Statistically and politically this would not pay off for at least ten years as it is mostly young victims of abuse, who have yet to offend, that would demonstrate results. I don’t think legislatures have the stomach to wait that long since election cycles are so short.
84% of male Convicted Felons and 94% of female Convicted Felons have suffered from abuse, trauma and violence from their childhoods and youth: Adverse Childhood Experience; Adverse Childhood Traumatic Experience. 82% of male Convicted Felons and 90% of female Convicted Felons have struggled with Addiction.
Most people who have committed violent offenses come from tumultuous households and never received the proper diversion and intervention to get help before they became darker and got worse. And the majority of them are contrite, regretful, remorseful and repentant of what happened too.
Plus only 1% of 1% of all people who have violent offenses in which the 1% are those people with serial homicide offenses and with serial sex offenses are the true psychopaths and the true sociopaths. So psychopaths and sociopaths only make up 1% of 1% of people who have violent offenses.
Where do you get those statistics?
From different criminology/criminal justice schools, law schools, psychiatry/psychology/social work schools and criminal justice reform/justice reform advocacy groups.
Can you provide any citations to these statistics? Might be useful to some of us. Thanks