Jailhouse Rock

Well, my dear five (might I dare to say six?) readers... It seems that studying is not for naught, after all.
I've never felt so open minded and alert, so open, so ready to increase my knowledge, my insight and myself.

There is one thought obsessing me recently. After two months preparing for my Criminology exam, after melding my studies with my own experience, I am really starting to change my mind about many things.
For instance: prisons are useless, most of the times, and anyway it represents, from my point of view, a State's tender surrender. It's another example of the State's failure. The State gives up on taking care of the causes of crime (which is the illness), and takes care of the sympthoms only.
It's very easy not to care about the population living in your country and jail them if they commit a crime. It just takes some spending money to upkeep some police, a couple of putrid holes in an old building, two or three anti-tetanus shots in the infirmary, a couple of psychologists, and that's it.
Only to blame about crime afterwards. Not the huge, multi-millionaire white collar crime, which most of the times ends up representing the States themselves, but the small, desperate (most of the times) crimes committed by people whom I start to consider victims of these same States.
Research has shown that the true cause of crime is the excessive difference between richness and poorness in a country. Meaning: if everyone is poor, no one will get too angry. Ifeveryone is rich, no one will get too angry. And in these cases the crime rate will be limited. BUT when there are poor people, maybe ghetto-ized,  forced to take the most humble jobs in order to barely survive, who practically have no access to education thanks to the privatization of most schools (this example fits the USA very well), and when these same people watch TV and see nothing but wealth, nice cars, easy life, parties, money everywhere, and when these people ask themselves: "why am I not given the same possibilities?"; and when these people get rejected by a stupid culture which associates being poor with being a criminal (thus encaging the other in a self-fulfilling prophecy) without having done ANYTHING to deserve such treatment; and when they'll see stupid wealthy spoiled kids get nothing but undue privileges, maybe at their own expense: what do you think these people will do? Won't they perceive everything as a whole bunch of crap? Should they believe in any kind of justice? How?
And what do modern States do? Nothing. Only a bunch of illuminated Governments are actually trying to cure the cause and not thesympthom. Why? Is it so difficult? Well of course it is. It takes a whole lot of money, guts, and probably also BLOOD to do it (those who really tried to do something good, in the last 7000 years of human history, often lost their own lives - the Gracchi brothers come to my mind). But how can we hope to REALLY reduce crime if we don't shift our attention to the causes? Why do our States care not about redistributing education and possibilities? Also some wealth, but that's secondary! People are satisfied enough with possibilities! Why is no one fighting to open up POSSIBILITIES for everyone? Of course, it would be an all-around battle: it would mean cutting not wealth, but PRIVILEGES to most rich people; it would mean fighting the white collar crimes; it would mean forcing people to pay their taxes (HUGE issue here in Italy); it would mean fighting for YEARS to bring education and culture everywhere. And this is what a State should do: fight for ALL the people, not protect the usual uber-privileged. Genius could be everywhere, and we see every day the terrible effects of "recommendations", especially when you get surgery from an incompetent doctor. What would YOU prefer? To be in the hands of a recommended someone with nothing but a BIG surname, or of an unknown genius of the scalpel?
Of course, crime has no panacea. We'll always need prisons, unfortunately, and we'll never be 100% safe, andthe world will never be 100% just, and so on. I just think, as I've stated, that the way most states, USA mainly, are dealing with this issue, is biased, willing or nilling.
I somehow think it's willing. And, to say it all, I consider "visible" crime as nothing more than another white collar crime.
Am I right? Am I wrong? Both could be, and I'm open to discuss the issue.
If I'm wrong, I'll have learned something.