[pluma]

If harsher penalties were the solution to preventing serious crimes, you'd think the death penalty would have fixed that, right?

Turns out the only thing harsher penalties do (beyond a certain threshold) is make it more likely for crimes to escalate because there's no point restraining yourself (if it means leaving witnesses) if you're already going away for life / going to be murdered by the state anyway.

As a matter of fact, the best way to prevent crimes is actually preventing crimes. Figure out why people commit crimes, then try to fix that. E.g. if you stop treating addicts as criminals you can solve their underlying psychological/social problems and they don't end up robbing people to pay for drugs.

[afsina]

Problem is, there always will be murderers, abusers and thieves. Preventing crime is the right thing to do, but I don't think it is the answer for determining right degree of punishment if a crime is committed.

[pluma]

Okay, consider this: you're talking about punishment.

What, exactly, is the point of punishment?

Are you trying to prevent future crimes? Great, we're actually talking about crime prevention and severity of punishment is a red herring (because we actually need to consider punishment as merely one option among many).

Are you trying to satisfy victims? Okay, but now you're saying the punishment basically serves as a synthesised substitute for mob justice -- so why pretend there's anything humane about it at all?

Are you trying to deter other would-be criminals from doing the same? Great, we can actually measure the effectiveness of that empirically (spoiler: it's not great) and adjust punishments accordingly.

Or we can just build more prisons and put more people in jail (or murder them if we really don't like them) because that has worked out so well in the US.