Why Not Commit a Crime?

The massive crime bill that lawmakers passed last fall contains a chilling confession: They haven't a clue what causes crime. The bill earmarks several billion dollars to create a host of national commissions, task forces, studies, advisory boards—and even a presidential summit—all to study the causes of crime. The tragic irony is that we're spending billions of dollars asking the wrong question. The question we ought to be asking is, What causes virtue? Why do most people, most of the time, refrain from crime? Answer that question and we can begin to solve crime.

History is littered with failed explanations of crime. In the nineteenth century, Cesare Lombroso believed criminals could be identified by physical features—sloping foreheads and long arms; but no physical trait correlates universally with criminal behavior. In this century, sociologist Edwin Sutherland blamed crime on the influence of bad environments; but many criminals ply illegal trades chosen on their own. Marxist analysis blames poverty for crime; but wealth is no guarantee of virtue. During the 1977 New York City blackout, most looters were employed workers who didn't need the things they stole.

After an exhaustive 17-year study, psychiatrist Samuel Yochelson and psychologist Stanton Samenow concluded that all the standard explanations of crime are dead ends. Their own work suggests that crime is rooted instead in the way people think. Our thinking guides our choices; choices become habits; habits create character. They write: "Even when a specific crime, such as assault, has not been planned in advance, it is a matter of a criminal's responding in a habitual manner."

This approach aligns squarely with biblical teaching: In the words of Proverbs, "As a man thinks, so he is." Perhaps it is time to stop trying to explain crime and start asking how to persuade people to think differently—to make moral choices that create virtuous character.

In a recent speech, theologian Michael Novak drew a striking parallel to economics. Economists are forever seeking the cause of poverty, Novak noted. But the fact is that throughout human history, most people lived at the subsistence level. The affluence of the modern age began when Adam Smith turned the question around: He asked what causes wealth. If we can identify the systemic forces that create new wealth, we can nurture those forces until potentially everyone can prosper.

By the same logic, Novak said, there's nothing mysterious about why people commit crime. As the Book of James says, you covet things you cannot have, and so you quarrel, fight, and kill. Crime is endemic to the human condition.

The more significant question is how to encourage virtue. How can we create self-governing republics where citizens police themselves?

The answer begins with "as a man thinks." The historic function of intellectual leaders, says sociologist Philip Rieff, is to assert a culture's "communal purpose" through its normative ideals and moral demands. But modern elites have abandoned that function; instead, they exalt personal choice over communal purpose, individual liberation over moral demands. The result is an ethic of autonomy that undercuts internal restraints on impulses.

That approach is clearly bankrupt. A recent Newsweek poll found that three-quarters of Americans believe our country is "in spiritual and moral decline." The U.S. Senate has created a Character Counts Caucus. William Bennett's Book of Virtues tops the bestseller lists.

Yet virtue cannot be learned from textbooks. As Aristotle said, character is inculcated through communities—families, neighborhoods, churches—which demand moral accountability and give us models to imitate. The current ferment over crime presents an extraordinary opportunity for Christians to make the case for virtue. Secular institutions, racked by relativism and autonomy, cannot speak to the issue correctly. Only we can.

Our efforts must begin in our own families. The family is the first school of human instruction, where the deepest tracks of character are laid down, where our moral heritage is passed on to the next generation, where conscience is formed. Through family life we nurture the virtues needed to revive a decaying society. As Novak puts it, our country "ought to have 250,000,000 policemen—called consciences." And when those consciences are on guard, "it is surprising how few police are needed on the streets."

Second, our churches must become redeemed communities—what Richard John Neuhaus calls "communities of character in a sea of mendacity"—serving as models to the secular world.

Finally, churches must aggressively equip laypeople with a biblical world-view, informed by the classical understanding of virtue—temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice. Only then can Christians contend for virtue in the public arena.

For many evangelicals, this will take fresh thinking. We have a right tradition of personal piety, but we have lost sight of an older tradition of public virtue. Piety turns inward to cultivate the heart; virtue turns outward to build the community.

Given today's frenzy over crime, it is no surprise that Congress is pouring billions of dollars into misguided studies directed at the wrong question. This is a time when Christians should lead the way—not only in asking the right question but, even more important, in modeling the right answer.