We, the People…

are Not Tough on Crime.

We’re tough on criminals. The difference isn’t semantic. The difference is everything.

Our battle shouldn’t be against people. It should be against crime. And confusing the two has cost us decades and decades of struggles, trillions of dollars in squandered tax dollars, and shattered millions of lives on both sides of the prison walls.

We ask for tougher penalties. But punishment has become a reflex, not an intelligent and effective response. More charges. Longer sentences. Harsher conditions.
Cages have become our solution. Yet crime persists.

Why? Because we we’re fighting people instead of systems and conditions.

This is gonna aggravate some, but it’s a very literal truth: “Criminals” aren’t the problem. They aren’t NPCs in the game of life, here to lower the bar so we can feel better about our mediocrity. They are unwitting characters in a failed social experiment. Their unacceptable, inappropriate, violent, anti-social, and ultimately ineffective behaviors aren’t the problem. They are the symptom.

So what is the cause?

Crime isn’t what any child aspires toward. It’s where hopeless adults turn to. Crime grows where resources and opportunities are scarce, where combined wages no longer cover rent, where healthcare is inaccessible, where education is underfunded and underperforming, and where entire communities and cultures are seen as disposable, or worse still…not seen at all.

We can’t reduce crime by extending sentences. We reduce crime by reducing desperation.

Here’s where I’m gonna lose a bunch of ya!

The most important resource we can provide isn’t food, water, or shelter. It’s security. Safety. And it’s not as expensive as you might think, because the safety nets that provide the security won’t often be needed.

We misunderstand the impact of safety. It’s not about saving people. Not immediately. It’s about empowering and freeing people. People need to know, that if they fall on their face…they’ll be OK.

I know, I know. “This is starting to sound pretty socialist!” Shhh. It’s not.

“But people will abuse these programs” Shhh. They won’t.

Yes…those are logical concerns, but psychology…and lived experience…tell a very different story.

I once watched a sports show with comedian Ray Romano. He was being coached by legendary golf instructor Hank Haney. The takeaway had little to do with golf, and everything to do with perceived safety. Stay with me! I promise…I’ll make it all make sense.

Haney tracked and logged Ray’s first shots on every hole of his first round of gold. Then, in the next round, they changed one simple thing: Ray was allowed a mulligan (a do over) if he flubbed up his first shot!

What happened next is the part everybody seemed to miss.

Yes. Ray’s score improved. But Ray didn’t use the mulligans. He didn’t need to.

Knowing he had them was enough. The simple security of knowing he wouldn’t be punished for a mistake relaxed his nervous system. His grip softened. His swing freed up. His performance improved…not because he was rescued from failure, but because failure stopped feeling catastrophic.

Nothing about his skill changed. Nothing about the rules of golf changed. Only the perceived cost of messing up did.

That’s what perceived safety actually is. Perceived safety is not the absence of accountability. It’s the absence of panic. When people believe one mistake will ruin them, they stop trying to win and start trying not to lose. And “playing not to lose” is how performance collapses.

When people know they will be okay…even if they fail…they take healthier risks. They act with honesty. They try. They reach. They won’t let go of surviving to grab onto thriving…because the cost is too great.

Today, in punitive systems built on punishment, people play defense. In systems built with perceived safety, people self-correct. They stabilize. They grow. And here’s the part that challenges our assumptions:

Most people don’t need to be rescued.

Just like Ray didn’t need his second shots, most people don’t need bailouts, endless interventions, or perpetual support. What they need is the knowledge that if they stumble, they won’t be destroyed.

Safety nets work not because they’re constantly used…but because they’re constantly there.

When the consequences of failure aren’t life-altering, people rise. When people fall to the floor instead of falling off a cliff…they aim higher. They dream bigger…and God forbid, they smile more.

Yet we still protest… “They’re lazy! They’re just gonna take advantage of the system!” A better perspective is…“What if they finally take responsibility…because fear no longer has them paralyzed.

Perceived safety doesn’t make people reckless. It makes them more capable.

And the irony is this: The cost for these safety nets, these programs…isn’t prohibitive. In our current system…the more brutal and dehumanizing the consequences, the more expensive the system becomes. The more humane the safety net, the less often it’s needed. Because when people know they’ll be okay, they usually are.

That’s not softness. It’s how our nervous systems work.

Perceived safety is the absence of fear, not the absence of accountability. Perceived safety doesn’t remove pressure; it removes panic…and panic nerfs performance, judgment, and growth.

Furthermore, we don’t build safer neighborhoods by flooding them with weapons and surveillance. We catch more “criminals.” We create safer neighborhood together, by giving people stability, dignity, and real options. We give ’em more than the rhetorical right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

A society that pays poverty wages and then criminalizes survival is not enforcing justice…it’s enforcing disparity. Our failure is derivative. It’s exponential.

We talk endlessly about personal responsibility while building a society that puts independence (and thus interdependence) out of reach for tens of millions. We lecture people about choices while stripping them of meaningful ones. Then we blame individuals for outcomes we collectively engineered.

That isn’t accountability. That’s policy failure disguised as virtue.

The United States accounts for 4 percent of the world’s population, yet it holds roughly 22 percent of the world’s incarcerated people.

Let that sink in for a minute.

If mass incarceration were simply a reflection of crime, those numbers would resemble each other. But they don’t. Instead, they expose a system that doesn’t merely respond to harm…it amplifies it. We are not the most dangerous society on Earth; we are the most punitive. And that imbalance isn’t proof of strength or safety…it’s evidence of a nation that chooses punishment over prevention, control over care, and reaction over responsibility.

If we were truly serious about being tough on crime, we would focus on prevention instead of punishment.

That means living wages, so work actually provides security.
That means equitable access to education and information, so potential isn’t determined by a ZIP code.
That means affordable housing, so stability isn’t a privilege.
That means quality healthcare, including mental healthcare, so untreated pain doesn’t turn into crisis.
That means basic human decency, applied consistently—not selectively.

This kind of toughness…being tough on the cuases…it isn’t flashy.
It doesn’t fit neatly on a campaign slogans.
It requires long-term thinking, humility, and the courage to admit that cruelty has never been strength.

Punishment is easy.
Scapegoating is easy.
Building systems that actually work is hard.

But if the goal is safer communities…not just fuller prisons…we need to stop pretending that harsher penalties work.

You don’t defeat crime by crushing people.
You defeat crime by removing the conditions that make crime feel like the only option left.

Everything else is just theater.