When people commit crimes, they should be punished. But punishing crime is not the best way to stop. The best way to stop crime is to prevent it. Preventing something is stopping it before it happens. We need to understand why people commit crimes and do something about the reasons.

Some reasons for crime

Drink and drugs

Many crimes are committed when people are drunk. When they drink a lot of alcohol, they don’t know what they are doing. Some men hit their wives and children when they re drunk. Some people drive their cars dangerously and kill people when they are drunk. Some people fight each other when they are drunk. When they are not drunk, they are good, kind people, but alcohol changes them. The same thing happens when people take drugs.

Fanaticism

We all have our own belief. That is right and good. But if we think that we are always right and other people are always wrong, we are fanatics. We can’t see from other people’s point of view. Fanatics often commit crimes because they don’t understand that others have a right to their beliefs. They hurt people of other religions or destroy their places of worship. Hundreds of years ago this used to happen a lot. But now we know better. India, the law says that all people are equal- whatever their religion. So if people try to hurt others because they have different beliefs, they are criminals.

We can prevent crime if we teach people to respect each other’s belief.

Unemployment

Sadly, some people do not have jobs. They are called unemployed people. They try to find work, but there aren’t enough jobs for everyone. Most unemployed people obey our lows. But some commit crimes because they need money, or because they are jealous of people with jobs, or because they are bored.

Unemployed people do not earn money. So they sometimes steal because they need money to buy food and clothes. Unemployed people may feel they are not good for anything because they have not got jobs. They don’t care if they behave badly because they have nothing to lose if they are caught. When people have no work, they have nothing to do, so they get bored. Sometimes they commit crimes for excitement. We can prevent crime if most people can get jobs.

Injustice

Injustice is unfairness. If people are treated unfairly, they feel angry. Anger sometimes makes people commit crimes.

Some tribal people lived in a beautiful forest in a valley. They gathered fruit and hunted. They didn’t hurt anyone and they had enough food to live happily. The tribal people didn’t know how to earn money in a town and did not speak the same language as the people there. They became poor and unhappy. If we are unfair to people, they may commit crimes.

Carelessness

Even if we do al these things to prevent crime there will still be some people who are just bad! They will commit crimes even when they are not drunk, fanatic, unemployed or angry. We have to be careful o people like this. If we are careless, we make it easy for criminals to commit crimes.

Some ways to be careful

1. Don’t walk by yourself after dark or in a strange place.
2. Never go into a house or a car with someone you don’t know.
3. Don’t be rude to people and make them angry for no reason.
4. Be careful with money in the house. Lock it up.
5. Don’t carry a lot of money when you go out.
6. Lock your house when you go out.