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That argument has been made "punishment doesn't affect crime that much" nearly as long as there has existed a punitive justice system and I have always found it to be absolute crap. The teacher is no different from a policemen interacting with the public. The teachers job is to enforce the rules of the classroom, the policeman's job is to enforce the laws of society. It is no coincidence that kids who can't manage their behavior in school have an extremely high likelyhood to be arrested and/or put in prison as an adult. "The school to prison pipeline" as they call it. It also completely ignores our current state of the American classroom, which in many public schools is "out of control" with terrible behavior. Behavior that absolutely did not exist back when corporal punishment occurred in mainstream public school. Why do I bring up corporal punishment, because it is an example of when you remove the consequence that kids respect from being an option, and what is left is ineffective, the poor behavior grows. Same thing with crime.Is it really such a crime that your sarcastic comment triggered a deeper thought in me?
I don't think that your analogy works. In your classroom, you are a leading authority figure with a direct relationship and oversight of the kids. Your role does not map onto big daddy government / law enforcement. You could make a case that it would map onto a prison guard overseeing a cell block...but that's about it. The government has no direct relationship, no direct oversight of anyone (discounting the NSA, of course. Hi Hillary!).
There's a boatload of literature on crime and punishment and the deterrent affects of the latter...a good place to start is: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.844.2084&rep=rep1&type=pdf
What you'll find is that punishments have a much smaller affect on crime than you're thinking.
Punishment and public display of it may help sustain the authority you have in the classroom...but that example doesn't map onto adults out in the world.
I don't see how anyone can even try to argue with the notion that if you decriminalize crime, you will have less of those actions occur. We see the exact opposite playing out right now in major cities where many crimes have stopped being prosecuted and all crime across the board has increased.
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