A good compromise is having a low level of steady light, but when there is motion increasing the brightness. It won't work for every situation - the constant u

A good compromise is having a low level of steady light, but when there is motion increasing the brightness. It won't work for every situation - the constant up/down would be more annoying on a busy road, but we had a building with a large parking lot set back from a busy road that attracted lots of loitering in the parking lot. Swapping out the old parking lights to motion activated LED ones pretty much eliminated people congregating the parking lot at night leaving trash all over, tearing up the landscaping, or tearing up the lot doing donuts and other dumb stuff. So heck yeah, effective lighting can be a significant deterrence - and with things like motion sensors and LED fixtures with integrated dimming it doesn't even have to be obnoxious by default.