How to Reduce Crime

I fully believe in prisons and keeping criminals off the street. I do think that they way the United States is going about it a little bit wrong. The first thing is that our social system has to be malfunctioning because of the shear ratio of prisoners vs. population. To think our proportion is 5 times more than any other country is mind boggling. A prison term is supposed to be a deterrent. This is not happening. We need to look at different ways to prevent crime from happening and more efficient ways of dealing with prisoners.
After reading the book and watching the assigned video I believe there may be better ways of preventing the underlining cause of some of the crimes committed. I think that we, as a country need to go back to good old fashion family values. The lack of parental supervision and attention can cause children to go astray. If the parent is not there to guide and direct the child on the proper way to act in society, they turn to other sources (T.V., movies, friends, music) to learn and develop the way to act. As everyone knows, these are not the ideal behaviors that we want our children to possess. Our society has gotten to the point that we need to keep up with the Jone’s instead of providing the necessities and social skill’s for our family.
The death penalty is a highly debated topic. I think in order to be a true deterrent it needs to be administered quicker. Criminals stay on death row for years and years. To be an effective deterrent the sentence needs to be carried out sooner rather than later. Of course this means that the evidence needs to be overwhelming and there is no question that the person committed the crime. Only then should the sentence be carried out. If criminals are being executed within a year of conviction, then this is truly a deterrent.
I think another option to jail time for more minor offenses could be public shame. We need to take a page out of the Japan’s social and criminal justice system. In order for public shame to work, everyone needs to have some sort of social worth. For this to happen we have to refocus ourselves back to a family oriented society and hammer those values into our children. Only then would public shaming have a perverse effect on the individual and the family.
One major thing that makes our society a lot different than others is the right to bare arms. This makes weapons more accessible to people for those spur of the moment crimes. I might step on some toes but, should the U.S re-look at this amendment. The reasoning behind the right to bare arms was a fear of British invasion. We don’t have that looming over our heads anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for home protection. How many weapons do you actually need to protect your home? On the other side of the argument, would this really deter crime in America, probably not because if they are planning this crime out, they will find the means to follow through with it.
I think that we would need a major overhaul of not just our prison system, but the criminal justice system and our society to fully impact the way we deal with crime in the United States. I fully believe the most effective way to prevent crime is at the family level, by instilling good moral values and providing that good example for our kids to follow.