Legal deterrence based on threatened punishment works poorly in practice.

Evidence

According to the legal deterrence doctrine, the threat of punishment is intended to work in two ways. In direct deterrence, transgressors are punished to dissuade them from repeating their crimes. In vicarious deterrence, transgressors are punished to discourage others from committing similar crimes. The prospect of certain, swift and severe punishment is assumed to keep people law-abiding. This form of deterrence is plausible in theory but works poorly in practice (Bandura, 1986). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1375

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the contrast with self-sanctions that the rest of the chapter will develop; relevant to the vault’s interest in how ordinary people avoid self-blame. — connects to: Aggressive judicial remedies can backfire and worsen the condition they aim to fix. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1564
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1375