Oh, man! Lots of typos up there. I really should fix the Hebrew on this machine.

But using Dan's comment again (sorry, Dan) I wanted to ask if people here really believe that rough prison conditions would deter offenders. A myriad of research project presents this premise, at best, as highly questionable. For a sanction to be deterrent, one must assume perfect rationality and perfect information; and assuming this would be downplaying the social climate producing crime and thus missing the point entirely. Research from the seventies supporting deterrence has practically been rebutted. I'm not saying deterrence never works, I'm just surprised some folks here automatically assume it does.

(note to self: might be worth a short article on Haayal).