At present we confine over 1.6 million people in jails or prisons. We rarely ask whether this war has produced an equivalent reduction in crime. It is clear from the data that the geometric growth in prison and jail capacity has had little role in the current downward trends in both reported crimes and victimizations. It also protects the existing social structure while perpetuating both violence and street crime. Wars on crime are symbolic rather than substantive policies.
Crime is a socially constructed phenomenon.
Consequently, how we think about the problem of crime not only structures the crime we see within society but also structures our policy response to it. As long as we conceptualize street crime as the major criminal threat to society we will continue to ignore far more deadly, costly and destructive crimes of corporate America. As long as we focus on revenge against individual offenders we will continue to ignore social conditions from which the next generation of street criminals will develop. As long as we demonize the offender rather than recognize their humanity we cannot attain the peace we seek. We need to do the hard work of remaking our society into the peaceful society we say we want.