You've clearly spent some time looking up links to support your cause, so it's unfortunate that you've cherry picked only the ones that support your beliefs. He

You've clearly spent some time looking up links to support your cause, so it's unfortunate that you've cherry picked only the ones that support your beliefs. Here are some others that say the opposite. "Sentence Enhancements Reduce Crime" http://www.nber.org/digest/oct98/w6484.html http://www.nber.org/digest/oct98/w6484.html "Longer prison sentences deter re-offending, study shows" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8504923/Longer-prison-sentences-deter-re-offending-study-shows.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8504923... Longer sentences deter crime up to a point http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2016/03/criminal-justice http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2016/03/criminal... "Longer prison terms really do cut crime, study shows" https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/07/longer-prison-sentences-cut-crime https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/07/longer-prison-se... "the average add-on gun law results in a roughly 5 percent decline in gun robberies within the first three years" https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/dabrams/workingpapers/Deterrence12312011.pdf https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/dabrams/workingpapers/D... Note also that 2 of the 4 links you provided are comparing certainty-of-punishment vs harshness-of-punishment. This is a false dichotomy. There's no reason you can't have both. Having harsh punishment doesn't reduce the certainty of punishment in any way. Is there a lot of contentious debate on this topic, and a lack of consensus on this topic? Of course. But given the lack of clear answers, I'd much rather err on the side of preventing victimization.