I don't want to incarcerate a first-time shoplifter, but a habitual thief deserves to spend some time in jail, and the threat of jail will deter people from being habitual thieves.
> the threat of jail will deter people from being habitual thieves.
It'd appear though that given probability, an American is more likely to be in jail than the citizen of any other country, but even with this high threat of jail, these crimes seem to be on the rise.
America is a huge country, with a state and local laws that are inconsistent over both geography and time.
It can be true that we over jail and impose longer sentences in some places, in some past eras, and/or for some crimes, to no good effect, while also in other places, other times, or for certain crimes, under punish such that there is zero deterrent effect when there needs to be at least some.
Since America is such a huge outlier in terms of jailing people, my thinking is that we ought to compare America to other similar countries and see what the differences are. Pressing the "harsher punishments" button would seem premature, in my view.
You should not be comparing America as a whole to most other countries. The states have historically had more autonomy resulting in more diverse sets of laws and cultures than most other countries. If you must compare, I think state level data would be a more fair comparison.
