Soo Im guessing that this type of penalty is pretty effective at deterring theives,
Way back in T days, so early-mid 90s, our District Manager scored a 6-month gig in Saudi Arabia.
He was telling us stories after he got back & one of them was that they had the "3-monthly" punishment day. Done in the main stadium in Riyadh, in front of a full crowd, & also televised live! Several people flogged, a couple lost a hand & even one beheaded for murder!
He went on to say that there was then a news article a few day later to say that not one crime had been reported in Riyadh in those intervening days, so yeah, I guess it must be a deterrent
Another day, they were at the shopping centre, & watched a local bloke wheel his trolley full of groceries out, leave it sitting on the footpath & walk off into the carpark. Came back a few minutes later in his Merc, loaded the groceries in, then obviously remembered that he had to get whatever, because he left the Merc parked there,
idling so the air-con would run!!!, & went back inside for a few minutes, came back out, jumped in the car & drove away.