Comment by rahimnathwani

  Your claim that prisons reduce the likelihood of the population at large is not obvious on its face

Are you saying that, irrespective of the chance of being caught and convicted, and of the severity of the likely punishment, the likelihood of someone committing a crime is constant?

  Here is a study supporting the assertion that prisons increase (or do not reduce) the likelihood of someone reoffending in the future

That has nothing to do with the point I made, which was about people becoming criminals. I said nothing about the behaviour of existing criminals.