> Has it had an effect on crime rates? This is probably impossible to know, since totalitarian regimes are known for providing completely fake statistics - and

> Has it had an effect on crime rates? This is probably impossible to know, since totalitarian regimes are known for providing completely fake statistics - and it's usually not like they have one set of numbers (real), but publish another (fake), it's that the whole pipeline is hopelessly corrupt so nobody knows the real numbers. USSR was notoriously plagued by this problem - not only for crime, but also for other things like economical statistics.