Steps to be taken to reduce crime?

Crime is a staple in almost all societies. Deviant behavior helps define group boundaries and brings people together in a posture of moral outrage which strengthens group identity and adhesion.

If you want to change the perception of crime you need to first change society's values.

For example, look at how we pour resources into fighting marijuana use. Billions of dollars in the war on drugs, lots of lives lost, and and children growing up really suffering because their parents are in jail. We build lots of expensive new jails to house new "deviants" who just wanted to feel good. It's a huge percentage of the jail population. When you start to look closely at the effects on society as a whole of making pot illegal, perhaps THAT's the crime. We as a community define what is "crime". Maybe the real crime here is all the children who grow up in single parent families or suffer precarious circumstances in other ways because of low level recreational drug use and the get tough attitude in our society. Even the heavier stuff could be better regulated if it were legalized.

Okay, maybe you buy that argument, maybe you don't. But to answer your question, one way of reducing crime is to change our rules. It doesn't mean to stop caring but maybe respond differently to the people with those impulses.

Scientific evidence shows that children who are spanked tend to misbehave more in the long run, I believe because the loving relationship was impaired. We need to look at the totality of relationships and not just the so-called "criminal" behavior. There are ways of showing disapproval, influencing behavior and creating healthy boundaries that involve less punishment and hostile labeling, and hence less social cost overall, by building on the positives and cultivating more respect and real listening in all directions.

On a societal level that means better childhoods for everybody through quality child care or making it easier for parents of young children, probably through govt subsidizing of quality daycare, better job opportunities, better education, and EARLY CHILDHOOD INTERVENTION. It also means keeping abortion legal, because the major shifts in levels of crime tend to come twenty years after those kinds of societal changes, after all the kids grow up whose parents didn't really want them or didn't have the resources to raise a child right.