This season Riot introduced a way to counter smurfing; everyone starts in lower ELO and climbs much slower. For some reason this is supposed to work as an incentive to prevent smurfing. It has the exact opposite effect. Think about it, smurfs are now longer in low ELO, and can stomp them even more before having to make a new account.

What should be done to avoid smurfing is greatly accelerate the climb based on one's individual performance and winrate, so that anyone stomping in low ELO would rapidly climb to higher ELO's and leave the low ELO people alone. This would benefit people in low ELO by making sure there aren't as many smurfs stomping them, and this would benefit those who "had to" (e.g. new region) create a smurf and want to get to their own ELO ASAP. The only people this would hurt is those who want to stay in lower ELO to stomp for longer.