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Why Do People Commit Crimes In America

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According to a statistic by the U.S. Department of Justice and their collaborators, the number of prisoners in the U.S. has grown by over 700 percent since the 1970s. This extreme increase in incarcerations means that people disregard the law and constantly commit crimes. But these crimes are not all equal. Crimes range everywhere from murder to simple drug use. Law enforcement punishes almost all of them equally. This can be seen as unjustified and something should be done about it, but that does not stop the crimes from happening. The only way to do that is to deal with the people behind the crimes, either by doing more to support them or remove the cause altogether. People commit crimes for a variety of reasons. From revenge to insanity …show more content…

Yet, when it’s citizens and residents struggle to survive on a day to day basis, it reflects poorly on the nation itself. An important case of poor government oversight lies in the criminal justice system. In the case of the Freddie Gray riots of Baltimore, there was an issue regarding the bail for Freddie Gray’s murderers and a rioter. The court had set the bail for the rioter at $500,000 for a variety of charges ranging from minor theft to destruction of property. Yet, the most disturbing part of this story is that Freddy Gray’s murderers were actually charged significantly less. Their bails were set between $250,000 and $300,000. Their is a serious issue when a country values property more than the lives of it’s citizens. Even worse is the policy towards felons. During the Clinton administration, there were plans in legislation to enact policies that would cut off past and known drug felons(no matter how minor), from all forms of government support. No public housing or basic benefits for life. The government would sooner leave all citizens that have been labeled as felons to die rather than give them the help they need to change the way they

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