Crime rates and crime insolvency rates statistics do not influence actual crime rates

The title is long, so let me mention it again. This is about how crime rates and crime insolvency rates statistics do not influence actual crime rates.

I have a theory to explain this. But before that let's go a bit into why I'm writing about this.

People often attribute higher crime rates to weakening law enforcement or lower successful prosecution. Because of this, they blame law enforcement agencies for not doing their job and they point out that such incompetence will only worsen the problem by promoting even more crime.

I believe that in most cases, this line of reasoning is wrong.

People will always believe that they have better luck. Although statistics quotes for high divorce rates, newlyweds go into marriages with the idea that theirs will be a happy and lasting one. Have they thought about the scenario of a divorce, of being a single mother, an abusive spouse and all?

People who commit crime will always believe that they are the part of the statistics of not getting caught for their crimes, or not successfully persecuted in court. The reasoning is that there are crime that are caught, just as there are marriages that are broken, but that their crimes will not be caught.

Because of this, they commit crime. People who are bad enough and who thinks like this will commit crime. People who are bad enough but who do not think like this, and rather ponders about the scenario of getting caught will not commit crime.

I believe however, that extreme cases are an exception. In extreme cases, I mean where crime solvency statistics are very high, or very low. That's why you have lawless states where crime rates are high and states where people are so afraid of the enforcement agencies that crime rates are very low. The latter case is not found in liberal democracies with a relatively limited government however.

Are the severity of sentences then an influence to crime rates? I believe not, with the exception again for extreme cases. 20 years in prison is very very long time, heck, a large portion of the population isn't even 20 years old and really no one has the right to claim that 20 years is insufficient for any crime not amounting to murder. But rapists who could potentially land themselves this long behind steel bars have definitely not got scared enough by such punishment. My take is that when they commit the rape, they don't think about the 20 years, they think about getting away with it. So even if it was 30 years or 40 years, rape cases shouldn't drastically decline, except when victims are afraid that their family get in prison for 40 years.

But then again, if parking illegally is punishable by death, no one would park illegally. An example of an extreme case.