The More You Excuse, The Less You Prevent

Modern crime policy has been hijacked by a simple but disastrous idea, that understanding criminal behaviour is more important than stopping it. What began as an effort to study causes has metastasized into a campaign to rationalise, excuse, and ultimately normalise the unacceptable. The result is entirely predictable, crime rises, order collapses, and ordinary people pay the price. The purveyors utterly negligent.

Excuses, no matter how eloquent, don’t prevent a single assault, theft, or stabbing. They embolden them. When consequences are softened, when personal responsibility is blurred by a fog of psychological jargon and failed sociological theories, the criminal sees not empathy, but weakness. And weakness invites exploitation.

The data speaks plainly. In jurisdictions where police are defunded, prosecution is discretionary, and bail is provided without cost, crime spikes. It doesn’t matter how many social workers are hired, how many services provided by some random taxpayer funded NGO or how many committees are formed. Criminals respond to incentives. When the risk goes down, the crime goes up. This isn’t a theory, it’s observable reality.

Much of the blame falls on a culture that confuses cause with justification. Poverty may correlate with crime, but it doesn’t cause it. If it did, every poor community would be a warzone. They’re not. The difference lies in norms, enforcement, and expectation. Where excuses replace standards, collapse follows.

Psychologically, the habit of excusing crime strips the offender of agency and turns the victim into an afterthought. The system starts to see the criminal as the real casualty and the victim as an unfortunate statistic. Over time, this rewiring of moral focus seeks to transform justice into therapy. Courts no longer protect the public, they counsel the predator. And if you’ve ever met a judge, they are most definitely not capable of good counsel.

Security professionals know this first-hand. Patrol the same streets long enough, and you see the same faces. Not because the system failed to identify them, but because it refused to hold them. Recidivism becomes routine, not because society doesn’t understand crime, but because it’s too cowardly to confront it with clarity and consequence.

Profilers, psychologists, and crowd behaviour analysts have long understood that deterrence isn’t built on compassion, it’s built on certainty. If a criminal knows they will be caught, convicted, and punished swiftly, they reconsider. Not out of a sudden moral awakening, but because it no longer pays. Prevention flows from predictability, not pity.

Yet the modern courtroom has become a confessional booth for society’s guilt. Judges hand down lenient sentences not out of legal necessity but out of a need to signal moral virtue. Legislators write laws with carve-outs for favoured groups. Academics push theories that suggest even asking someone to obey the law is oppressive. Meanwhile, police are demoralised, businesses are boarded up, and neighbourhoods decay.

Every excuse given to a criminal is a burden shifted to a law-abiding citizen. Every time the system explains away a carjacking, a stabbing, or a home invasion, it quietly invites the next one. The moral equation is simple, the more you excuse, the less you prevent.

And eventually, when the excuses run out, all that’s left is fear, and the shattered remains of what used to be a civil society. From the author.

The opinions and statements are those of Sam Wilks and do not necessarily represent whom Sam Consults or contracts to. Sam Wilks is a skilled and experienced Security and Risk Consultant with 3 decades of expertise in the fields of Real estate, Security, and the hospitality/gaming industry. Sam has trained over 1,000 entry level security personnel, taught defensive tactics, weapons training and handcuffs to policing personnel and the public. His knowledge and practical experience have made him a valuable asset to many organisations looking to enhance their security measures and provide a safe and secure environment for their clients and staff.