The tremendous increase in the rate of incarceration that has occurred over the past forty years or so strongly indicates more crimes are happening. There are many insightful explanations for the increase, but none exclude the possibility that more crimes are occurring.  This is the first in a series of essays in which I explore some of the implications. In an earlier essay, I suggested that there is no “cause” for crime. There is a cause for proper behavior. The cause for proper behavior is adequate moral formation.  I also pointed out that the traditional family that was the traditional beginning point of moral formation, and that the breakdown of family cannot help but have impact on moral formation and ultimately on criminal activity.  All of this background information points to an additional counterintuitive point: the solution to crime will not necessarily result from the expansion of law enforcement agencies or spending more money for law enforcement.

And while the escalation of crime may be associated with family breakdown, the answer to crime does not lie in an attempt to rejuvenate the traditional family by forcing parents to live together unwillingly.  In my career as a judge, I believe that I saw instances in which moral formation happening in reverse. The actions of an abusive father and an immoral mother seemed to result in children whose conscience was plugged in backwards.  They could not feel good about themselves unless they were doing something bad!  Ironically, some good scholars actually contend that such childhood circumstances should be considered in mitigation of the sometimes terrible acts that individuals produced in such environments do.

In addition to family, the peer group is very important in moral formation.  After infancy, children develop and mature in relationships with people other than immediate family members. As children grow older, their peer group plays a larger and larger role in their moral formation. Inevitably, this means that community and the peer group are extremely important in determining whether individuals will engage in criminal activity. Like poor parenting, a bad peer group can certainly result in something less than desirable moral development.  Who the kids hang out with makes a difference.

The place where most individuals encounter the peer group is in school and the educational system. That is often where children meet other children with whom they will develop relationships.  I met my wife-to-be in the first grade. And the schools themselves clearly have an important role to play in moral formation. The learning process plays an important role in moral formation. The prisons are filled with individuals who have performed less than adequately in school. Often illiteracy is a problem and clearly there is a positive correlation between lack of linguistic skills and criminal behavior. But schools cannot completely provide the values, and emotional attachment to values that need to be instilled by family, church and community in general.  Moreover, interactions with other students—the peer group—is just as instrumental in moral formation as interaction with teachers.

The important point in this discussion is that family, church and community must build moral citizens.  That is ultimately the only answer to crime.  Only by reinforcing the values that were traditionally instilled by caring parents, and by surrounding developing children with a community that cares, and that will instill positive values, can we hope to overcome criminal behaviors. Church and religious groups have a strong role to play in this process. It is a role that religion has played in the past, and religious organizations need to become very intentional about the matter. In a sense, the increased rate of incarceration represents as much failure on the part of the church and religious organizations as on the part of law enforcement courts. It is not enough for the church and community to condemn evil, and commend the work of law enforcement.  The traditional role of the Judeo-Christian heritage has been the advancement of positive good, and creation of strong citizens.  The condemnation of evil does not solve the problem and bring the solution.

The basic premise of this essay is that we must find positive ways of dealing with all of the individuals in our society. A caring community that supports families, churches and schools is the ultimate answer to the problem of crime. That support must be imbedded in the structures of the community, and must be intentional.  Strong, honest law enforcement is very important, but it is not the answer to the increase in criminal activity, and greatly increased rate of incarceration. No amount of emphasis on law enforcement and incarceration will provide a meaningful solution to the problem of crime.  We actually must “accentuate the positive” if we are to “eliminate the negative.”  We’ll develop further ideas imbedded in this initial essay in this series of essays.