There are five reasons for punishing criminals in America:
- Deterrence: To discourage future criminal acts.
- Incapacitation: To separate the criminal from the general public.
- Rehabilitation: To provide the inmate with the skills, norms and attitude to be a productive member of society.
- Retribution: Just and adequate punishment.
- Restoration: To restore the victim, community and convict through accountability, respect for the law, the legal process and attention to the victims needs.
Now, an excellent point was made a few posts up that a large problem is that we, playing individual parts in this process, cannot agree on a punishment.
For example, Susan shoplifts from a store. Susan's fear (and thus an excellent deterrent) is of people finding out about her crime, so she is sentenced to walk out front of a populated area wearing a sandwich board stating her crime for 4 hours each day for two weeks.
The shopkeeper (victim) feels that incarceration would be better suited, while observers in the general public think that community service would be more appropraite for a low-risk first-time offender.
So, the question comes down to should we tailor sentences to the offender with the hopes of making them realize their fears will come true of they offend or should we simply deal the harshest penalties possible regardless of the case?
To me, that harkens too much towards a Zero-Tolerance style punishment system which I, personally, abhor in the school system; however, depending on the severity of a sentence, while a two month stint in a local county jail for shoplifting will scare the bejeezus out of Susan, it'll be a cake walk for a career criminal and only reinforce to him that crime does pay.