Quote:
Originally Posted by shinerbock
I'm not sure I've ever heard someone overtly say that crime is excusable because of poverty, but I've heard people come close. When you say that reducing poverty is necessary to reduce crime, it removes responsibility from those who've chosen to break the law, and I simply won't support that. How about we try and reduce poverty by helping people, and crime by punishing people?
Are poverty and crime correlated? Sure. Do they have to be? No.
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In an ideal world, you're right.
However, explaining something, particularly from a sociological/psychological perspective isn't the same as excusing it and I think that's a difficulty that people really have in these discussions. Explaining why a man murders his wife and children by looking at his past, his environment, his own psychological status doesn't make it okay. In the end he still chose to act.
Personal responsibility is a problem. However you get a kid who started hanging out with the guys on the corner back when he was 12. He's 17 or 18 and he gets arrested, what do we do with him? If we lock all of those kids up, they're MORE dependent on the state. However we also can't let criminals run free.
That's why I'm suggesting we address the systems in place when that kid was 11. It's the only way out of a no-win situation.