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Is that actually a thing, where 'gentle parenting' results in kids who are stealing iphones or doing more or less organized crime? I genuinely have no idea.
I think robbers know perfectly well what they're doing and are evaluating risk and reward for their crimes, perhaps with skewed analysis of risk but they're still making an assessment. You'd never see them rob some 2 metre tall bodybuilder, even those 'schizophrenics' who push people onto subway lines or whatever, they'll go for someone weaker than themselves. Maybe the payoff for killing is hatred or jealousy rather than pure monetary gain...
I agree that swift discipline is the cure but I think that they all have some ability to judge, even if it's some reptile-brain 'this guy looks alpha better not attack him' level. More specifically I think some middle-class coddled brat is going to be really whiny and irritating when running into some obstacle but won't rob a store because he/she assesses 'I can just get my parents to pay for it'. Whereas the hardened thief calculates more along the line of 'who cares if I go to prison, my mate Bronco is there, I know lots of people who went to prison, and I don't want to look like a pussy and I need this cash fast'.
You'd think this, but then there are endless videos of criminals doing things that just seem completely insane to anyone who has a normally functioning understanding of cause and effect, like reaching for a cop's gun inside of a police precinct. A mere knave wouldn't do that.
This is because a certain category of criminals are simply that slice of humanity that has very low impulse control and is incapable of modeling the consequences of actions, or at least incapable of letting that affect their judgement. Watch enough footage and you'll recognize them.
Lots are just pretending they don't understand because they think that this will let them get away with it, but the small slice of people who genuinely have no impulse control exists and is most of those people who are arrested hundreds of times for the same petty crime.
Career criminals as you mentally model them also exist but they're a different breed.
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