[goldbeck]

Maybe? I'm not sure the analogy helps here, as it seems unclear that prisons are an effective way to discourage crimes.

This here govt website suggests is the act of being caught that is the major deterrent to crime, not the severity of the punishment https://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx

Original source: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/670398?seq=1#page_scan_t...

[wisty]

Or prisons do discourage crimes, they just don't do so very well if the suspects aren't brought to justice. People are natural gamblers, and will be likely to discount the risk of punishment if there's a decent chance they'll get away.