> Your premise that strict punishment leads to impacts on crime in the 1st world is not supported by just picking Japan and the USA as your only evidence.
They were just the only example, because I can't be arsed to detail all of East Asia that happens to have a comparable inequality and strong enough middle class.
See also Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Korea. Hell, see more than that. Lower crime rate, generally stricter punishment than found in the U.S.
> Deterrence relies upon criminals knowing facts of the law,
It doesn't. This gets transmuted through culture, and would-be assailants have an overall sense of what punishment would entail without knowing specifics. Anyone in the first world regardless of class would expect 1st degree murder to lead to ample time served for example.
> deterrence would rely upon them to weigh and measure the consequences and not commit crimes.
To an extent. It's not entirely conscious.
> How does deterrence work when criminals believe themselves to be lucky and not susceptible to being caught?
Cost-benefit analysis. They gamble.
> How does deterrence work when desperation, poverty, and a culture of crime leads young men to view punishment with a shrug or disdain?
It's viewed with a shrug when incentives to commit crimes are comparatively strong. Not so in the aforementioned countries.
> Issue three, the biggest in my view
Weird thing to say. It's not relevant.
> We've seen rises in violent crime in the US in the past year -- has deterrence gone down?
Nope. Unrest has gone up.
> Issue four, Japan is a highly insular island nation with an ancient culture and quite a unique cultural attitude.
Uhuh, and would this be the same bullshit argument to hand-wave away the circumstances of similar neighboring counties?
Culture is informed, and culture is not immutable. Laws change culture.