Belligerati

I'm not sure I would call either of these links proof, perhaps support would be a better choice of words.

In reference to the first one, (retribution) I have often noticed that law seems to have three goals which are quite distinct, but have all become quite muddled up together in our legal system. The first goal is immediate utilitarian benefit for the society. The simple idea of preventing someone from doing something again by locking them up. This is mostly out of favor at the moment, though you do still occasionally hear cries to castrate sex offenders, which would mostly fall under this category. I think a lot of Civil law would also fall under this category. (almost anything where one person sues another)

The second is to dissuade people from breaking the law by establishing consequences. Once again pretty self explanatory. (though I think that there is a great deal of confusion in the government at large about how effective this is)

The third is Retribution. Which I agree is a legitimate goal.

My complaint however with the current state of affairs is that all three of these motives are stitched together in sentencing guidelines with no particular rhyme or reason. Most crimes take whatever the harshest value of the three is, others the lightest. I think it would be tremendously helpful to attempt to tease apart these motives when looking at sentencing.

I'd add a fourth, restitution, but I agree.

We could also weigh this again four attributes of the crime itself, difficulty in catching offenders, damage done by the crime, revulsion at the nature of the crime and motivation for the act (at a minimum intent, although others might put hate in this category)

It would be nice to review the civil and penal codes to examine the relationship between the these attributes. Then maybe violent felons would go away longer and we'd get rid of a few peaceful drug dealers.

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