I fail to see the correlation. Are there times when a criminal who will always be a criminal progresses from petty crime to a violent one, absolutely!
But did instituting the death penalty cause people to stop killing each other? Hell in the Middle East people still try to steal knowing they might get their hands chopped off.
People who smash a building window to get in are not A) getting out with no bail and B) get charged with more than theft and C) if there is any coordination there is another charge.
I absolutely believe it needs to be scrutinized but we've become such a lazy country where we blame everything on the first thing we see.