A lot of people say that, and while it might be true that there would be less crimes if the punishments were harsher, reality does not indicate that. The countries with lower crime rates actually tend to have less harsh punishments and spend more money on different forms of treatment to get the criminals back on track in life.

If someone just says, "Fuck all criminals. They do bad stuff so they should get the shit kicked out of them." that won't magically remove the reasons which made them commit the crimes in the first place. For that reason it is important to find out why the crime was committed, and take action. Otherwise the reasons will still be there and the crimes will recur.

Nothing is ever idealistic

It's a double-edged blade. There may very well be less crime, but I read an article about a man in the UK that murdered 7 people and received a sentencing of 5 years in prison. This is unacceptable. There has to be a happy medium between kill them all and let them off easy.

Punishments keep people sane.

While some punishments are extreme, life would be chaotic if there were no punishments.

The Ludovico Method comes to mind

This is ridicilous. You only describe criminals as being victims.

That's because they are. In fact, we are all victims to our personal preferences. Even the kindest - as well as the most horrific persons you could possibly think of are victims to their surroundings, feelings and values. For instance, Hitler was a victim to his greed and countless other factors which made him think he was the good guy in the war.

Some criminals may appear to have had no- or very bad motives for their criminal actions, but that's simply because it can be difficult for us to understand them, and how they resonate.

We are all victims to how we resonate, and our reasonings are completely depending on our beliefs. We don't choose what to believe; our guts tells us what we find reasonable. We could defy our guts, but that would put us in denial.

Of the countries that are usually compared, there are a lot of other factors that are not taken into consideration ...

The divorce rate in countries like the United States is far higher than countries like Canada, and scandinavian countries have an even lower divorce rate; and you see similar trends in statistics like the teen pregnancy rate. This is so important because studies consistently show that children raised in single parent households do far worse in every measurable way than children from two parent households, especially when it comes to crime statistics; and this is especially problematic when children are raised in single parent homes in communities with high rates of single parent households.

I don't know why there seems to be a more dramatic social decline in the United States compared to Canada ...

So you mean people who make good and beneficial deeds also victims. The "no free will" argument, that tere's always a ligitimate excuse for every single action any individual ever takes in his life, always.

But why do you assume criminals always have these negative features, like bad childhood, poor economy, personality defects and so on.

Can't you imagine a more harmonic person commit crimes?