You see it all the time in drug cases. Back in the 1980s the professional malcontents in places like Brooklyn, NY were complaining that the police and the courts had to "do something" about a rampant problem with crack cocaine. Then, after the entire machinery of legal system and law enforcement was put into place to "do something" about the problem by cleaning the streets, the same professional malcontents complained that stiff sentences for drug possession was making victims out of the nation's permanent underclass.
There's no fixing this kind of problem.
Just follow the money...