Stopping crime & solving all other problems

[Bhakti Vikasa Swami]

Our treatment is for the spiritually diseased person. When a person is
afflicted with a disease, there are no distinctions between a poor man and a
rich man. They are both admitted to the same hospital. Just as the hospital
should be in a place where both the poor man and the rich man can easily come,
the location of the sankirtana facility should be easily accessible to all.
Since everyone is materially infected, everyone should be able to take
advantage.

The difficulty is that the rich man thinks he's perfectly healthy, although
he's the most diseased of all. But as a policeman, you well know that there's
criminality among rich men and poor men alike. So our chanting process is for
everyone, because it cleanses the heart, regardless of the man's opulence or
poverty. The only way to permanently change the criminal habit is to change the
heart of the criminal. As you well know, many thieves are arrested numerous
times and put into jail. Although they know that if they commit theft they will
go to jail, still they are forced to steal, because of their unclean hearts.
Therefore without cleansing the heart of the criminal, you cannot stop crime
simply by more stringent law enforcement. The thief and the murderer already
know the law, yet they still commit violent crimes, due to their unclean
hearts. So our process is to cleanse the heart. Then all the troubles of this
material world will be solved.

It is not difficult. Simply invite everyone: "Come, chant Hare Krsna, dance,
and take sumptuous prasada." What is the difficulty? We are doing this at our
centers, and people are coming. But because we have very little money, we can
hold sankirtana only on a small scale. We invite everyone, and gradually people
are coming to our centers and becoming devotees. If the government would give
us a large facility, however, we could expand unlimitedly. And the problem is
big; otherwise why are there national news articles asking what to do? No civil
state wants this criminality. That's a fact. But the leaders do not know how to
stop it. If they listen to us, however, we can give them the answer. Why crime?
Because people are godless. And what to do? Chant Hare Krsna and take prasada.
If you like, you can adopt this process of sankirtana. Otherwise, we will
continue conducting it on a small scale. We are just like a poor medical man
with a small private practice who could open a big hospital if he were given
the facility. The government is the executor. If they take our advice and adopt
the process of sankirtana, then the problem of crime will be solved.

From
The Science of Self-Realization
by Srila Prabhupada