Jay Honeck wrote:

In other words, we expect crime to cease, given enough punishment.

Nobody expects that in the general sense; only in the specific. If the Bible is
to be believed, we've had crime with us since the second generation of man. Even
back when God himself was levying the punishments, it didn't go away.

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would
not yield to the tongue.