The concept that government is not responsible for anything more than minimal support for social institutions such as schools, child care, poverty relief, and job programs doesn't come from liberal thought. Under the current thought, we have millions for punishment, though.

The social problems which lead to crime are affected by lack of community commitment to all of its citizens. When people have a stake in their community, when they have hope, when their fellow citizens care about them and talk to them, the temptations of crime don't have as much allure. Why trash their own home? If, on the other hand, they live in isolation and despair, with no one caring, they don't have that connection. Trashing where you live isn't as big a deal when you don't really have a home.

Sociopathy has always been part of human behavior. It can be caused by mental illness. It's profoundly affected by poverty. It increases when people don't manifest an understanding of equal dignity of their fellow humans. Long ago, the church took care of education, poverty relief, and nursed those who couldn't afford appropriate care. Long ago, the Church was also an arm of civil society, which led to other evils. We're working on eliminating those evils, but we haven't replaced the social services that the Church used to provide.

Since political action is the most obvious way to provide the services necessary to develop a sense of belonging that will increase attachment and thus reduce crime, activists will often choose politics. Since we now have a concept of justice based on civil rights (embodied for Americans in the Bill of Rights, which was derived from the traditions of British Common Law embellished by 18th century French political philosophy), we also seek to use political action to defend against erosion of civil rights by political means.

If the only way in which we attempt to make a common set of values is punitive, we won't have a social contract. We will have a collection of adversarial relationships in which people attempt to get the most for themselves at the expense of those who are not part of their group. Gangs have lawyers, too, and families and children. Some of them even wear suits and attended Yale. Unless leaders recognize they are the stewards of the fortunes of all the people, not only the ones who resemble them in some way, we will continue to have a fragmented nation in which people think it's OK to rob and destroy because they have to look out for Number One. Ironically, petty criminals are only following the example of the leadership: when we are told to look out for ourselves rather than for each other, we should not be surprised when that's exactly what happens.

Justice and civil equality form the foundation of a truly civil civil society. Sure, punish lawbreakers. Also look into the reason the laws were broken, and if its basis is in exclusion or injustice, fix that too. It's not a reward for lawbreakers; it's cultivating a common garden in which we can all work, from which we can all benefit, and of which we can all be proud.