>This is only true if you believe that the purpose of punishment is rehabilitation I'm not sure what you mean by this - the purpose of all functions for dealin

>This is only true if you believe that the purpose of punishment is rehabilitation I'm not sure what you mean by this - the purpose of all functions for dealing with crime (which may be called punishment) in civilized society is, in no particular order: 1. To protect people, e.g. by physical separation, 2. To rehabilitate, and 3. To deter (and, unfortunately in many cases, 4. To provide the basic human need to see the wicked punished). >Depending on how severe the punishments it absolutely can affect crime rates. That's an understatement! I only said it was true that some studies show punishment is ineffective, and that punishment "might not have an appreciable effect on certain crimes in certain contexts." >This is a very simple problem to solve. Remove the people from the streets. I think we should be able to agree that justice is complex in practice, and "remove the people from the streets" is leaving quite a lot unsaid. Maybe you meant that the problem statement is simple, which it is: "SF laws and/or enforcement are failing to keep people safe". >Do you think if we rounded up all the criminals and put them in jail, the crime wouldn't decline? This is unrealistic even in cities where enforcement is healthy, but even going along with the hypothetical: The topic was punishment as a deterrent. I.e. how well does the punishment of those people prevent them from doing it again once released, or prevent new people from doing it. Obviously regardless of the answer to that question, we need to separate from the rest of society those people committing violence, menacing, public drug-use, public defecation, etc (how best to keep them separated and rehabilitate/help them if possible is another obvious topic, but not one in the scope of my comments). My original post was not a defense of SF - it was a criticism of another post that I think was written in a way that damages the conversation. Most of what I've written here is an attempt to clarify my post in light of your interpretation, rather than providing new information. Maybe this is my fault - but I also think you might be making assumptions about the specifics and degrees of my opinion, which is frankly the common thread of dysfunctional conversations everywhere, especially on topics poisoned by politics.