To ignite and fuel such destructive impulses of man as envy, covetousness, and even anger is to prepare a powder keg of social upheaval. It is no coincidence that crime has been on the increase ever since the rise of political militancy. Year after year, the number of crimes reported continues to increase. One of every 12.5 serious crimes committed may lead to an arrest and only one of 58 is punished by imprisonment. In other words, for every 1,000 major felonies, only 17 criminals are confined temporarily to comfortable prison quarters.
Most politicians pay scant attention to the suffering inflicted by crime.
Blinded by their own advocacy of discontent and resentment, they may even argue that such crimes are unavoidable, that the criminals are only doing what society drives them to do under such hateful conditions, and that the victims of discrimination and exploitation are merely striking back at the discriminators and exploiters. There cannot be any doubt that doctrines of anger, together with government's cure-all policies, contributed significantly to the exploding crime rate of recent decades. The multiplication of programs designed to correct discrimination and exploitation actually increased the incentives for criminal irresponsibility. The massive expense of the programs tended to exhaust the resources that could otherwise have been used toward the proper function of government. After all, government is supposed to defend its people from foreign aggressors and domestic peacebreakers, to punish fraud and violence, to organize courts and sit in judgment of disputes.