I would say that playing to populist fears explains just about everything related to "tough on crime" politicians. It's also curious that the same "tough on crime" politicians seem for the most part surprisingly uninterested in the root causes of crime, such as poverty or lack of access to education.
Are you really sure that if there were no poverty and everyone had lots of education that there wouldn't be that kind of crime? Where are your real-world data to back up that idea?
