[alttag]

Deterrence is a concept that has been studied regularly by criminologists, and to my understanding has been shown to have only minimal (inverse) correlation to wrongdoing. In some studies, deterrence has been separated into formal sanctions (e.g., court system, being fired from work), informal sanctions (e.g., disapproval of peers) and personal shame. (And each of these may be broken down further into certainty and severity.) Of these three, only formal sanctions demonstrates statistical effect, but in the presence of other factors (e.g., willingness to rationalize) its effect is very weak and almost disappears.

So yes, deterrence has a place, but it's a very minor one, and researchers have understood this for decades. Politicians and the public haven't yet caught on, perhaps because we seek concrete preventative measures or conflate deterrence and justice.