Impacting on crime

America had statistically high crime rates for a thirty year period from the 1960s into the 1990s. During that time, the emphasis was on what was called the due process model, a liberal perspective, rather than the crime control model which was a conservative perspective. The due process model emphasized the rights every citizen has as provided for in the United States Constitution and the courts were charged with ensuring that those rights were being protected. One of the famous Supreme Court cases that came out of that philosophy was Miranda v. Arizona which established the rule that a defendant must either be read or told their rights by the police. During this time, extensive probation, suspended sentences and community corrections were being used rather than incarceration. But the general public was increasingly concerned with the high crime rate which had been steadily increasing with no decline on the horizon.

So in the early '90s, we changed direction and perspective by adopting the crime control model over the due process model.

The crime control model was literally the polar opposite of the due process model because it emphasized getting tough on crime and criminals and requiring convicted felons to serve their sentences in prison instead of the community. So the number of people being incarcerated during this time increased dramatically and because the bad guys were being locked up, the crime rate started to decrease and has continued to generally decrease over the past 25 years.

A criticism of this approach revolves around the fact that our rate of incarceration is the highest in the world. Not close to the highest, THE highest.

That means we lock up more people per capita than any other country on the planet. If the criminals were getting fixed while they're in prison, it would certainly temper the criticism but they're not. We have a recidivism rate in this country that's over 70 percent and has been for a century or longer.

That means for every 10 prisoners released from prison, 7 will end up back in prison within 5 years of their release. And if you extend their release time out to 10 years, over 90 percent will return to prison. Regardless of your political bent, no one can look at those numbers and say it's a good thing. Criminals are being warehoused, not rehabilitated and the reason for that is we don't know HOW to rehabilitate people.

Our basic personalities are formed by the time we're seven or eight years old. In other words, we are who we are at a fairly early age and although we continue to change throughout our lives based on our experiences, the early childhood experiences we had play a much larger role in shaping our attitudes and behaviors than anything that happens after that. That's why we can't change who a person is. It's possible for the person to change what they do but even that's hard because they have to be motivated to do it. How many people do you know personally who have problems in their lives because they won't do what's necessary to eliminate those problems? Most of the people involved in crime, alcoholism, some forms of drug abuse, abusive relationships, poor parenting and other social problems are in those situations because of what THEY'RE doing, not what's being done to them. All they have to do is stop. All they have to do is say to themselves that they're not going to do that anymore.

But they won't. Many say they can't but that part's not true. You can change any destructive or harmful attitude or behavior you have if you want to change it but most people aren't willing to make the effort. It's easier for them to keep on doing what they've been doing, regardless of the harm it causes them or others, than it is to change. So they DON'T change.

And now we have new crime data that reveals something very sobering. Violent crime rates are actually going up again in several major metropolitan areas across the country.

In perhaps the most violent city in the world, Chicago had 141 homicides in the first three months of 2016 compared with 83 during the same period last year. According to the May 30th issue of Time magazine, Jacksonville, Florida, Las Vegas Nevada, Los Angeles California and Memphis, Tennessee all saw sizable increases too. Overall, murders increased by 9% for the 63 cities surveyed and the numbers for rape, robbery, aggravated assault and non-fatal shootings were up as well.

The experts are confused by this data because in half of the cities surveyed, crime rates went down. Charleston, North Carolina, Houston, Teas, Oakland, California, Tulsa, Oklahoma and most significantly, New York City.

New York City tallied just 68 murders in the first quarter of this year compared with 85 during the same period in 2015. This year's number accounts for the fewest murders on record for the city.

Crime is something people have to learn to live with. We're one of the most criminal countries in the world and, because of that, we're also one of the most punitive.

But it's always been a cat and mouse game between criminals and law enforcement and it will continue to be. The criminal wants to beat the cop by getting away with his or her crime and the cop wants to beat the criminal by catching and convicting them. And the criminals learn to be criminals through the early socialization process they go through with their families and acquaintances.

Until we figure out how to fix families and to make positive impacts on the personal choices that people make, we'll continue to have limited control over the crime rate.