You're describing judicial punishment such as incarceration, not policing. Police do bust crime rings, given the resources and intel they have. I actually agre

You're describing judicial punishment such as incarceration, not policing. Police do bust crime rings, given the resources and intel they have. I actually agree that consequences can be an effective deterrent. Usually the naysayers share examples of recidivism to contradict this, not first-time offense. Seems kind of obvious and non-controversial that repeat offenders would not be deterred by possibility of jail once they're in that world and have nothing to lose. One need only look at all of east Asia to get a sense that harsh punishment works, it's just that you then have to deal with the other pitfalls... such as harsh punishment being applied in areas you don't want. Even if you do increase prison time, it would have to represent a worse enough fate than what would-be criminals are living that they would wager differently. If crime scales with poverty, it's because poverty sucks. Jail sucks, but it tends to be a revolving door.