Getting Tough On Crime

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In the eyes of the general public, “once a criminal, always a criminal” but this is an unfair assumption to make. For years the getting tough on crime approach has been very popular among politicians because criminal activity is looked down upon by virtually everyone in society and politicians use this to try and gain support for their party. When you think about getting tough on crime, things like longer harsher sentences are ways to crack down on offenders but there is no real evidence that increasing the penalties for crimes actually works to prevent them from happening. Overall getting tough on crime does not work because harsher sentences do not impact criminals, it costs the tax payers a lot of money and our society today does nothing to prevent crime in the first place. The first reason why getting tough on criminals does not work is because for the most part, they are not deterred You must Login to view the entire essay. If you are not a member yet, Sign Up for free! by increased punishment for the crimes they commit. For smaller crimes such as parking violations and speeding tickets, deterrence seems to work because people committing these crimes are not considered criminals, rather law abiding citizens who have made a mistake and are aware of the punishment. The fact that the penalty for armed robbery has gone up to twelve years from nine years does not pass through a criminals mind because they genuinely do not expect to be caught for the crimes they commit. (Critic, 2006) Craig Jones, director of the John Howard Society of Canada, said offenders focus on methods and strategies of how not to get caught for their crimes much more than they consider the sentence if they do. This theory explains why deterrence is not the best method to prevent crime because it does not explore the reasons why people commit them. The general public does not know the

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