The overestimate of the punitiveness of the general public on the part of politicians and others has become known as the:

This has become known as the mystical public punitive. In Criminology, this is a contentious issue, argued by many scholars that there is no definitive proof for this, which is the reason it is defined as "mystical", punitive being defined as a form of "punishment", relates to the fact that small cases of crime are inflated by the general public to promote specific ideas by groups or parties within society.