This is about fixing the reasons leading people to commit those crimes in the first place. Let me tell you a story. A friend of mine helps convicts with socie

This is about fixing the reasons leading people to commit those crimes in the first place. Let me tell you a story. A friend of mine helps convicts with societal reintegration. One of the guys he was working with, we'll call him Mark, had dealt heroin. Did his time (3-5 years, I think), had gotten serious in prison about his life and responsibilities (4 kids by 3 different women), and decided when he got out he was going to stay clean, get an honest job, and do what he could to take care of his kids. He had child support judgements against him before and during his time in prison, and he owed something like $30k in back support. So, after he gets out, he has to go to the family court judge and tells him, "Sir, I know I have responsibility to my kids, and I want to repay what I owe on my child support. I'm working on getting a job, what do I have to do to meet my obligations?" Family court judge helps work out a plan whereby Mark is not going to be held in contempt for his back support as long as he makes his current payments. Mark sleeps on couches, eats ramen, walks 2 hours to work the each way to work the night shift, (can't get an apt near work without 3+ months of deposit because he has a felony) saves as much as he can while paying his child support, spends time with his kids every weekend, finally saves enough to by a car. Not a nice car, an older beater, but now he doesn't have to walk to work, and he can go pick up his kids, take them to the park, etc, etc. He's saving up so he can get his own apartment and not have to sleep on couches in the neighborhood where he is surrounded by his old friends that are trying to get him back into dealing. Mark is doing lots of hard work now. When he was dealing, he drove new cars, partied, always had money. Now he's going through the grind of constantly having to make the right choices, but doing good. Did you remember Mark's old car? Well, he didn't realize that the taillight had gone out. Mark's night shift job was in a 'whiter' part of town. Mark's black. Mark got stopped for having a tail light out. Mark's license check showed that he was in contempt for back support because some clerk didn't file his repayment plan correctly or something. Mark went to jail. Mark's apartment deposit went to bail, and he only got 75% back. Mark's car got impounded because he had to spend 48 hrs overnight and his one phone call couldn't cover getting his car in time, and his deposit dropped another couple hundred dollars. Mark's doing OK now, he was able to get some help and get his apartment and keep doing what he needs to do. But that's largely because he had some white friends help him navigate the system. I could tell you have a dozen other stories of guys like Mark who had something similar happen and say, "Even if I do what's right, the man is going to get me. Why bother?" And kids internalize these stories, and then they don't even want to make the changes. Sometimes, the reasons for crimes are that being a reasonable human being says there's no reason not to commit crime.