Apparently the problem is, if you kill someone you have to pay for their funeral costs. If you wound someone, you have to pay for their treatment for the rest of their life. And judges are known for assuming that whoever brings a wounded person in must have done so because they were the party who wounded them (there was a famous case where the good samaritan who brought in a wounded old lady was made to pay for her treatment). So I don't think it's brutalisation so much as people thinking "shit, if I pick this kid up, my own family will be poor for the rest of my life..."