Disproportionately harsh sanctions erode their own enforcement because officials decline to use them

Evidence

License suspension or revocation is unquestionably a “powerful deterrent*# the question is whether it is too powerful. If it is thought so harsh as to be unfair there will be great reluctance to invoke it and in over-all’Iesult it may lose its effeotiveness as a sanction* … In practice, the FCC found that the sanction was so harsh that it could be invoked only in the most extreme cases. And it has requested and received from Congress the power to issue cease and desist orders, as a sanction to be used for most misbehavior. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1098

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Permanent-exclusion licensing sanctions are so powerful they are rarely invoked, weakening their deterrent value — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1099; Private civil enforcement with treble damages was proposed as an alternative to criminal penalties — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 917; Funding takings compensation out of agency budgets coerces agencies to self-curb enforcement — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 579