[adrian_b]

In my opinion some of the punishments used in antiquity were far more rational than those of today. Prison as a punishment did not exist, because anyone would have considered it stupid to pay money for housing & feeding a felon.

For theft and other forms of damage that are not irreversible, the deterrence was achieved not by threatening with prison, but by forcing the guilty person to pay a multiple of the value of the stolen goods or of the damages.

The multiplying factor varied from country to country. Where laws were less severe, a thief had to pay double or maybe quadruple, but where laws were more severe a thief had to pay ten times the value of what he had stolen.

So even today this would be a better punishment. Nobody has any advantage if someone who has stolen 10 million goes to jail, but if he had to pay back at least 20 million, then that would be real deterrence.

In antiquity, those who could not pay back the required amounts risked to become slaves, a method which would not be applicable today. Nevertheless, in the present society where it is almost impossible to hide, it should be easier to enforce payment without such extremes.