The US has the highest per-capita rate of imprisonment I think we’re plenty “hard on crime”. What we lack is a principled stance that Americans deserve basic dignity and access to things that make people live less violent lives. It’s no secret that poverty is the key contributor to one’s likelihood of being in prison.
People who are “soft on crime”, practically speaking, are the people and politicians so committed to dehumanizing others that they’d rather watch their neighbors wallow in poverty or rot in jail than to actually do something to address the root causes (the foremost of which being the aforementioned societal dehumanization of the poor).