[bombcar]

At extremes "tough on crime" obviously works; if every person who ever did a crime was summarily executed by the state, very quickly you'd run out of crime-doers.

Obviously, even the worst societies have considered "death for every offense" a bit too tough.

The problem is complex and involves multiple things - any "simple" solution likely has glaring issues.

And a glib answer to some of these could be "NYC cracked down on crime so criminals moved elsewhere, perhaps to San Francisco".

[shuckles]

More policing and consistent prosecution also work at the margins, not just the extremes.