Strong Deterrent Needed
To deal with those who have not had instilled within them a foundation of respect for law and who have chosen a life of crime, another element is required if crime is to be stopped.
Former U. S. Attorney General Edward H. Levi has asserted: "We must understand that an effective criminal justice system has to emphasize deterrence. There are many causes of crime, but among them is the failure of our system to move quickly and effectively to detect and punish offenders."
The second major cause of crime is the lack of a firm punitive deterrent against crime in the form of stiff penalties for those who commit it, penalties which fit the crime. In many of the Western industrialized nations, criminals are often arrested one day and back on the street the next, free to commit new crimes. Many who are arrested are never brought to trial. Of those tried, relatively few go to prison. Of those imprisoned, many are out long before their full sentences have been served.
The United States, again, is the trend-setter in this regard, where criminologists estimate that of all serious crimes, only 12 percent lead to arrests, only six percent to convictions, and only one percent to prison.
That is not the sort of treatment which is going to deter criminals from committing crime. In fact, criminals today are convinced they can literally get away with murder; that crime pays! They can commit the most violent and vicious crimes and find themselves back on the streets a short time later.
Over half of the persons arrested on felony charges in the United States have prior criminal records — some having been arrested ten times or more previously. A man commits armed robbery of a liquor store and is released on bail to await trial. A few days later he is arrested again, this time for burglary. Again he is released on bond. When he fails to appear in court, a warrant is issued for his arrest. Arrested, he spends a few days in jail. The burglary charge is dropped on a "technicality." Found guilty of armed robbery, he is placed on five years' probation. While out on probation, he is arrested for rape while armed with a knife.
"Revolving-door justice" it's being called. Criminals move in and out of the criminal justice system as though it had a revolving door.
When will it be realized that laws do not deter crime? It's the swift, certain, consistent and impartial enforcement of those laws that is the deterrent! "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily," the Bible observes, "therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Eccl. 8:11).
Prisons are rarely able to rehabilitate offenders, and often actually become "graduate schools" of crime. Rooting out ingrained character defects formed over many years is a nearly impossible task. Prisons are not a solution to crime, but prison terms that are meaningful and fit the crime can serve as punishment and as a means of isolating criminals for the safety of the rest of society. Since the majority of serious crime is committed by repeaters, incarceration for longer stretches will automatically result in a marked reduction in crime. And if criminals know that a "ten-year sentence" means a ten-year sentence, they'll probably think twice before committing crime.
Ultimate Responsibility
In summary, effective teaching in the home during the formative years coupled with a strong deterrent to crime in the form of meaningful punishment by the criminal justice system would go far in eradicating crime. The institution of speedy and firm punishment for criminals would have the most immediate effect in slowing crime. Correcting the home situation would involve a major, long-range reeducation effort over many years, but in the end would pay the biggest dividends.
To both efforts there would undoubtedly be much resistance on the part of so-called "progressive" thinkers who would view the debasement of traditional parental roles as a good thing, and would see stern punishment as "cruel" or "vindictive."
There remains, however, the ultimate consideration of inner motivation — why man, left to himself, inclines to crime in the first place.
The Bible reveals the ultimate cause of crime: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." (Jer. 17:9). Why? Because Satan the devil — the very personification of evil and lawlessness — is the "god of this world" (II Cor. 4:4). He has deceived all nations (Rev. 12:9) and peoples into pursuing a self-centered way of life which leads to unhappiness and strife: He is revealed as "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2).
Six thousand years of recorded human experience have demonstrated that mankind as a whole has utterly failed to resist Satan's way of vanity, jealousy, lust and greed — of which crime and violence are the natural consequences.
At one point in history, the situation became so critical that God was forced to start all over again. "The earth [in the days of Noah] also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence" (Gen. 6:11). Man's thoughts were "only evil continually" (verse 5). So the antediluvian world was wiped" out by a great Flood, and all but Noah and his family perished.
Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off:
for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter."
Isaiah 59:14
But Satan was still around, and mankind, after the Flood, quickly reverted to its old ways once again. Significantly, Jesus Christ prophesied of these "latter days": "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matt. 24:37). Today's ever-rising level of crime and violence is fulfilling those very words!
The Ultimate Solution
The Bible also speaks of a time — not far distant — when Satan will be bound and cast into an abyss "that he should deceive the nations no more" (Rev. 20:2-3). Of that time the prophet Isaiah says: "Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so shall the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord" (Isa. 11:9, The Living Bible).
In the final analysis, crime is a spiritual problem. Human nature, the Bible reveals, is a "criminal" nature, since it is "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). The solution to crime lies in the conversion of a carnal, lustful, resentful, spiteful, hateful human heart — changing the nature of selfishness, lust and hatred into one of giving, loving, sharing and serving!
Today, God is keeping hands off this world. He is not yet ENFORCING His laws on anyone, but allowing each individual to go his own way — to exercise his own free moral agency. The failure of governments, churches, education and the family to understand and to practice the laws of God is at the root of the worldwide crime problem! But the time is coming, and you are hearing the announcement of it in the pages of this publication, when God's millennial rule over this earth will completely abolish crime! Whether legislators like to admit it or not, God's powerful method of deterrent for crime is capital punishment! ("The wages of sin is death" — Romans 6:23.)
God says: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jer. 31:33). No human being, concentrating on the wonderful things of God's Holy Spirit — of goodness, gentleness, meekness, kindness, mercy and love — could ever brutalize another human being! God's Kingdom is the final solution!
But what about now?
Believe it or not, the ONLY interim solution is the realization of government and crime-fighting agencies that swift, sure, consistent punishment, measured exactly to suit the crime, will bring crime into reasonably controllable proportions. Lacking such absolutely guaranteed punishment — swift detection; swift, sure prosecution; sure convictions based on solid evidence; and just, consistent sentencing — we will only continue to see our international crime wave grow worse.