Criminal punishment patterns lack deterrence or retributive logic

Evidence

But the truth is that in most countries the pattern of criminal punishments looks more like the random product of press attention, moralistic fashion, and the fluctuating taste for vengeance. There is no hard evidence that it is an optimal, even a reliable, means of deterring actual or potential offenders, and no evidence that it represents a systematic way of communicating blame or of punishing crimes in proportion to degree of blame. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 710

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Punishment scales with the unfairness of the wrongdoing, not with deterrence needs — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 103; Certainty, not severity, makes punishment deter because it fixes crime-punishment links in minds — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 157; Abstract legal codification deters crime by engineering a mental link between offense and punishment (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Punishment scales with the unfairness of the wrongdoing, not with deterrence needs #corroborates (0.85) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 103
• Punishment severity does not affect crime rates #corroborates (0.85)
• Penal policy ignores the criminal psyche and acts on market incentives #corroborates (0.80) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1357
• Certainty, not severity, makes punishment deter because it fixes crime-punishment links in minds #contradicts (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 157
• Punishment deters when its expected cost merely exceeds crime’s benefit #contradicts (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 154
• Pro-death-penalty defenders concede deterrence evidence is weak #corroborates (0.75)
• Abstract legal codification deters crime by engineering a mental link between offense and punishment #contradicts (0.72)
• Punishment policy cannot reduce crime independently of the social order #corroborates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 968
• Law’s self-justified punishment replicates the lawlessness it punishes #complicates (0.70) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1452