I've said this before but I'll say it again.

A few years back I lived in a country that folks love to bash for its lack of human rights. One of the criticisms of this country is the fact that the death penalty is frequently used and not just for murder but also rape, child molestation, etc. Furthermore, when a person is sentenced to the death penalty his execution comes within, at most, a few days of the sentance. Penalties for lesser crimes are also very harsh.

Now say what you will, but when I was there I lived in a city with 14 million people. This place was so fucking crowded that it made NYC look like a subburb. It had many of the same problems as NYC (or any big U.S. city) such as poverty, huge gaps between the wealthy and the poor, etc. What it didn't have a lot of, however, was crime. I could walk down any street at any time of the day and not feel like my personal safety was threatened. How many big U.S. cities can we say that about?

I can't help but think that the lack of violent crime in this country has something to do with the fact that it is well known that if you have committed a crime and are caught your life will either be shortened greatly or, at the very least, made very unpleasant. Unlike in the U.S., where in many cases criminals feel that the rewards of crime easily make up for the potential consequences of getting caught. What we need to do is make criminals think that no matter what they might gain from committing their crime, no way does the reward justify the risk of what will happen to them if they are caught.


Oh yeah, I don't mention the country because most people will have a preconceived opinion about it which will cause them not to think about the argument, just reinforce their opinion about the country.