There are secondary effects to "tough on crime policies", and more severe punishments do not necessarily increase deterrence effects on crime, and could even cause more crime. There is a very complex relationship between the factors that influence crime which is likely anything but linear.
"Tough on crime" statutes were implemented across much of the US 40 years ago, and the results we've seen are anything but a success story. Sure, crime has dropped, but at the expense of becoming the world's #1 country by incarceration and causing downstream societal effects as we lose economic productivity, rip apart families (and potentially create new criminals), and create public distrust of police.
Some might say that is a reasonable price to pay for a decrease in crime, but that doesn't hold water when we it compare to the rest of the western world who saw the same or even better drop in crime without all of the side-effects of the 'tough-on-crime' policies. Globalization, technology, and a drop in poverty caused this drop in crime, not 'tough-on-crime' policies.
"Tough on crime" statutes were implemented across much of the US 40 years ago, and the results we've seen are anything but a success story. Sure, crime has dropped, but at the expense of becoming the world's #1 country by incarceration and causing downstream societal effects as we lose economic productivity, rip apart families (and potentially create new criminals), and create public distrust of police.
Some might say that is a reasonable price to pay for a decrease in crime, but that doesn't hold water when we it compare to the rest of the western world who saw the same or even better drop in crime without all of the side-effects of the 'tough-on-crime' policies. Globalization, technology, and a drop in poverty caused this drop in crime, not 'tough-on-crime' policies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop