ok, this article has a couple of things that seem like common sense to me. the biggest being harsher punishment. there are two things that will stop a person from commiting a crime: morals and fear of punishment. and fear of punishment trumps morals. how many crimes do you commit everyday, even if its a stupid law to begin with? speeding? not coming to a complete stop? not using a blinker? jay walking? stealing a pen? these are all little crimes that you are much more likely to not commit because you're afraid to get caught. and often we still do them because we know that even if caught, it's not that big of a punishment. which is exactly the problem with the criminal judicial system, just about anywhere. a guy beat someone to death with a bat and only got 2 years? that's a fitting punishment for petty theft maybe, but not such a brutal murder.
harsh punishments would be more of a deterrant to crime than anything else. if you know that you are likely to be put to death for murder, you're gonna really stop and think before you do it.
Ah, for the old days when crime was limited to five drunken indians from Kenosha stuffing a cab trunk with the aluminum siding from their reservation homes, selling the scrap in St. Boniface, getting drunker and committing suicide by jumping in front of your car on North Main Street.