... simply punishing people is not enough. There is a frustrating feeling amongst the more liberal thinkers, that there has to be a better way of doing things: sentencing has to prevent crime and tackle its causes, otherwise it does no more than take bad people off the street for a while. There has never been a human community without crime. Thousands of specialist academics around the world have tried to put their finger on why some communities generate so much more than others, why some individuals are so criminal, why some victims are so vulnerable. Some thought that crime was linked to consumption: more goods, so less need to steal. Then they discovered the opposite: more goods, so more opportunity to steal. Then they discovered the opposite again: more goods, so lower prices, so less that is worth stealing. No theory fits: not poverty, or inequality, or maternal deprivation or paternal ...

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