(graphic whooshing) (dramatic music) - Why do people commit crimes?

(dramatic music) People commit crimes for a whole lot of reasons.

(dramatic music) When you're living in an environment (dramatic music) where thriving is not even a possibility, (dramatic music) you make mistakes.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Our country was founded resonation with rules.

(dramatic music continues) - [Narrator] These rules are basic building blocks of a society.

(dramatic music continues) - It wasn't just to punish an individual for a perceived crime.

It was to maintain a social order.

(dramatic music continues) - In the colonial era, most people witnessed a public execution.

At its most basic level, it was entertainment.

(dramatic music continues) - [Narrator] There was something that was alluring about being the outlawed.

(dramatic music continues) - [Narrator] Jesse James represented a certain kind of powerful masculinity.

- People who can't make ends meet.

They admire the gangsters and bank robbers.

(dramatic music continues) - Their charisma, their toughness, their lack of fear.

Once people actually get a sense of the brutality, that changes quite quickly.

- [Narrator] There's a sense of terror that crime is out of control, the streets are unsafe.

- Crime and punishment in the United States is often driven by crisis.

- Crime in America took its biggest jump.

- We must make America safe.

- We are losing the streets.

- By this vicious wave of violence that has ripped our nation.

- Three strikes and you are out.

- There's no sound like it when that gate clangs behind you and you're theirs.

(dramatic music) - We think about our history in terms of progress, but we have become consumed with practices of punishment.

(dramatic music continues) - [Narrator] When I think about crime and punishment in America, I think that it says we are a very unforgiving country.

(dramatic music continues) - We have to have a system that allows people to feel protected and safe.

(dramatic music) - If you committed a crime, is that who you are for the rest of your life?

- How do you change if no one ever sees you but for what you've done?

(dramatic music continues) We all deserve a world that is governed by mercy.

(dramatic music continues) And not one that's governed by vengeance.

(dramatic music continues)