The criminal class is maintained and encouraged by the totalitarian rulers in order to keep the dangerous producing class on off balance and afraid. It goes with The Terror which we are just beginning to see applied in a so far low keyed way. Sholzenytsin had a lot to say about all that.
Those who say the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime are as wrong-headed as they can be.
What is not a deterrent is the ridiculous system of courts that are strangling this nation and making a mockery of any kind of justice. Many of us believe that justice (to society as well as for the perpetrator) must be swift and the sentence carried out quickly after a review of the sentencing court’s findings.
Singapore’s justice seems to be the reason the small nation is literally free of serious crime. Their handling of the drug problem has reduced it to zero. If you’re apprehended either selling or buying mind-altering drugs the penalty is death.