Jahulaye - // I really don’t think that a few slaps on the bum would reduce any types of crime however hands cut off or threat of death might. //
In order for that argument to work, you have to assume that anyone committing a crime thinks about the potential risk of punishment, and that is simply not borne out by criminal history.
In order to think ahead, you require a level of intelligence that involves planning not only your future action, but the potential future consequences, and then to reach a decision as to whether or not you consider the risk or retribution to be worth the criminal act you are about to commit.
You would think that such thought processes would be beyond the average criminal who, at best suffers from a personality disorder incompatible with civilised behaviour, and at worst, suffers from a severe mental illness which makes the notion of retribution something which is simply beyond their thought processes.
Criminals don't think and weight up and reason and calculate punishment, and then go ahead and commit their crimes - the notion of being caught simply does not enter their heads, which is why the notion of punishment as a deterrent is largely a nonsense, with the occasional exceptions which do nothing to gainsay my point.