People who do this and cause other damage to memorials, are beneath contempt, and should be treated as such. They need re-education before being allowed to live freely in this country. Whether this is done via a psychiatrist or being shot is immaterial.
Couldn't a lot of these crimes be stopped by cutting the demand ?. E.G., a recent prog how lots of expensive cars get nicked and shipped over to africa etc. How about once the car has been traced, forcing the new owner to drive it for a week with the words " I bought a stolen car" painted on all sides. That won't look to good in the executive car park.
And as regards stolen metal, make it law that all metal reprocessing plants have to fully video everybody coming in and out, what they are dumping is examined, and no cash payments, dosh must go into someone's traceable bank account. If you also use the carrot/stick so that any scrap yard who catches a thief gets a reward, but if he gets caught handling stolen stuff, he looses his license to trade. That makes it not worth while nicking stuff because the demand is reduced.
A bit questionable is the idea of doctoring coccain at source with some chemical that makes you very sick for several days. Once the word got out, addicts would be very wary of buying stuff, and if the word got out that people who bought from dealer X were getting sick, his business would die pretty quickly.
Something has to be done to change people's attitudes to others.
Ken