Horrified. Sickened. Appalled. Whatever descriptor you prefer, it is what we all felt when we saw the images of Lauren Darul allegedly plunging a knife into the chest of an unsuspecting Wan Lai as she was walking to work down Little Bourke Street.

These are the emotions our political leaders, Jacinta Allan and Brad Battin, were quick to affirm in statements issued shortly after the footage was broadcast on last Thursday’s TV news bulletins.

CCTV footage shows the moment a woman allegedly stabbed 36-year-old Wan Lai in Melbourne’s CBD.

Les Twentyman Foundation chief executive Paul Bourke felt the same, instinctive reaction. “It was horrific,” he says. “I mean, put yourself in that position, where someone comes up from behind and suddenly stabs a knife in your chest.” Watching the footage captured by a CCTV camera, Bourke also saw something else.

“This is a woman who needed help and clearly, wasn’t getting the help she needs,” he says.

He is talking about Darul.

This is not the lament of a bleeding heart. It is the observation of someone who understands through their work that so much of the crime we see, the crime that damages the lives of victims and leaves others too fearful to walk the streets, is crime that might have been prevented had the right people intervened at the right time.

It is the rational, economic approach to say it would be better for governments to spend moderate sums of money trying to stop people from committing crimes rather than tipping hundreds of millions of dollars into new prisons........

© The Age