El Salvador shows how it can work, of course what went down there also wouldn’t fly in Europe but crucially they didn’t actually go around and murdered people en masse – they rather humiliated them and dished out long prison sentences left and right not particularly caring whether they put away innocent people.

Well, in El Salvador it currently looks like it's working. But, as you said, we haven't really seen the outcome yet. I'll give it a few years until I actually admit that it's working.

That alone isn’t enough, you also need to provide alternatives or people are going to take their chance.

Absolutely.