It won’t work, we have literal piles of research showing that severity of punishment is not an effective deterrent, and to an incredible degree for children. They tend to either not think of consequences, or have youthful hubris and be certain they won’t get caught (even when they have in the past, I got spanked numerous times for the same exact things).
I would go so far as to bet it will have the opposite effect. Nothing legitimizes using violence to affect the behavior of others like the state doing it to you. I doubt they have the introspection to recognize the difference between state and personal violence, the message they’ll get is “might makes right”.
Those countries have structurally different cultures, economies and governments. Eg Singapore has a median household income that rivals or exceeds the US, in a part of the world where that makes them fabulously wealthy compared to their neighbors. That alone is a huge crime deterrent; why steal stuff you could just buy off whatever their Amazon is? They’re also a fairly small island, so it’s way easier to control drugs getting in.
TLDR Singapore and Japan have low crime rates that likely have nothing to do with severe punishments.
I would go so far as to bet it will have the opposite effect. Nothing legitimizes using violence to affect the behavior of others like the state doing it to you. I doubt they have the introspection to recognize the difference between state and personal violence, the message they’ll get is “might makes right”.
Those countries have structurally different cultures, economies and governments. Eg Singapore has a median household income that rivals or exceeds the US, in a part of the world where that makes them fabulously wealthy compared to their neighbors. That alone is a huge crime deterrent; why steal stuff you could just buy off whatever their Amazon is? They’re also a fairly small island, so it’s way easier to control drugs getting in.
TLDR Singapore and Japan have low crime rates that likely have nothing to do with severe punishments.