Those who say that extreme punishment will make crime go down do not know history. In England, at one point in time, there were no less than 300 capital offenses. That's right. 300 different ways to lose your head. The medeival world featured punishments the likes of which the world has never seen since, from being ripped apart by horses, to be being impaled with hundreds of iron spikes inside a metal coffin, to the good-old fashioned boiling alive. to receive a whipping the likes of which would flay the flesh off your back was a relatively light sentence, and if we go further back to the days of Rome, there was crucifixion, which by historical accounts, lasted up to three days.
In both instances, crime was abundant. In some modern-day Islamic fundamentalist states Sharia laws still applies quite literally: steal, and your hand is cut off. Slander a man's wife, and your tongue is ripped out. Rape, and well...You get the picture. And yet, high crime rates persist.
