Reccomendations for Preventing Crime in Queensland

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Topic 4: Felton (1997) argues "Future crime policies are likely to turn away from incarceration and towards prevention". Using your understanding of criminology and the reasons why people commit crime; provide a recommendation on what action you think the government should take to prevent crime in Queensland.

Speculation has been raised about whether incarceration is effective for criminal offenders. When an offender goes against the law, it has been argued that they must take a 'social debt'. Therefore, they are sent to prison to protect the public community, and to be punished. This solution hopefully prevents criminals from committing crime. However, future crime policies should turn away from incarceration and work more to preventing crime. "Statistics shows that offenders who have graduated from the drug court program, stop offending by around 80 percent compared to the 12 months prior to their participation" (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2008). Studies show that treatment and crime prevention programs are more effective than incarceration. It is believed that the government is not willing to fix the main reasons why people commit crime, however instead, the government is constantly funding for prison construction which is extremely costly.

Crime is defined as an illegal act that violates the law and is punishable upon conviction. (Criminal Justice and Legal Access Police Division). Any person who has been declared guilty of crime must be punished, as these punishments such as incarceration, costly fines or in some instances both. However, persons found liable in a civil case may only have to give up property or pay money, but they will not be incarcerated.

A suggested underlying cause of crime is the amount of edu...

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...'t have to pay so much for incarcerating offenders - as the amount of criminals committing crime will definitely increase. This solution will definitely be useful as the government is already funding so much for crime.

In conclusion, upon investigating these solutions, it was evident that the government should evaluate the small risk factors rather than constantly trying to fix the larger and more complexed problems. First of all, the government should try to eliminate or reduce the likelihood of adolescents not graduating from secondary school. Secondly, examining how much they spend on incarcerating perpetrators and comparing the cost to prison construction to rehabilitation and prevention programs. Last of all, the government should considering funding more to the disadvantaged communities we have here in Queensland, as it will help the social structure there.

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