Ah, the Broken Window Theory... I have seen that ripped apart/defended so many times I am not sure about it any more!   Just out of interest, did you read about it in Gladwell's Tipping point? I read Blink before Tipping Point and found them both fascinating....   I think the custodial sentence/deterrent is a different strategy though.                                                                                                                                                                             

I think we can debate this topic”until the cows come home”, and to what purpose, as interesting as it may be. However how much does our individual and personal opinion count and therefore matter. Having studied both studied law and criminology it seems far more intellectual scholars than myself have tried to solve or theorised and put forward solutions to sentences; dangerous driving, prison overcrowding, knife crime etc,etc but is this country any the better for it? No. Ms Bleak