Sadly, there is widespread agreement that “crime is an ever-present condition, even as sickness, disease, and death.” This universally high proportion of people proven to be involved in felonies necessitates the policy of mass incarceration. However, the severity of the punishment never effectively deters criminals. Instead, I believe that tackling the root causes of crime is a better way to go about reducing crime.
Increasingly punitive sentences add little to the deterrent effect of the criminal justice system. There exists strong criminological evidence that lengthy prison terms are counterproductive for public safety as they result in the incarceration of individuals long past the time that they have aged out of the high crime years. In most cases, the rates of crime involvement begin declining sharply by a person’s early to mid-twenties and continue on a downward trajectory. These dynamics challenge the significant meaning of the length and effectiveness of prison terms. Besides, Mass incarceration is also fiscally unsustainable in that as the prison system is expanding, it diverts resources from program and policy initiatives that hold potential for greater impact on public safety.
In the effort to combat crime rate, it would be better and more effective to adopt prevention initiatives to address these root causes. Although crimes can vary in their typology and methods of execution, most crimes are the result of certain risk factors, such as poverty, unemployment or other less obvious causal factors like the influence of violence in family or movies. Research studies indicate that intervening early in one’s life diminishes the likelihood of embarking on or persisting in a criminal career. For those convicted, assigning social workers to teach them useful living and social skills or sometimes simply enhancing the economic reality are proven effective to rehabilitate the offenders and deter them from repeat offences.
In conclusion, the effect of threats of the long period of imprisonment seems to be moderate. Prioritizing interventions at an early age and skills and economic development would largely affect potential deterrent and rehabilitative goals.
