# Why do \[people\] want to punish so disproportionately to the crime?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-want-to-punish-so-disproportionately-to-the-crime/663758>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [July 17, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-want-to-punish-so-disproportionately-to-the-crime/663758 "2013-07-17T15:30:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Renee\_RL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7c8e57/32.png) [@Renee\_RL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee_RL)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-want-to-punish-so-disproportionately-to-the-crime/663758/41 "2013-07-26T12:51:18Z")

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> [@BigT](#):
>
> That isn’t why it is done, and you know it. It is supposed to be the ultimate deterrent and a way of removing someone from the population without having to pay for their incarceration. The assumption is that particularly heinous criminals will never be rehabilitated.
> 
> You can disagree with these principles all you like (as I do), but it’s not about revenge.
> 
> I’d discuss the thread, but it’s about something different than I thought it would be. I thought it would be about that initial feeling you get that you later realize is irrational. Not things that people earnestly condone. Like, why do people feel the desire to hit someone who is annoying them? My answer to that is that anger and frustration put us into a win-lose mode. We aren’t thinking about the consequences.
> 
> I guess that could extend to more long term effects, as people can stay angry for a long while, but you’d think it would usually be figured out.

Capital punishment is as expensive as housing the prisoner, so please don’t say this isabout the expense.. The second point telling me I know it isn’t about revenge. …It is about revenge! We already know that capital punishment does not deter murder. I have an idea. Why not surgically blind someone and put them on the streets that would be a deterrent because people would see them and At least we would not be murderers. I am saying this sort of tongue-in-cheek to show that your argument about am deterrent is invalid. Killing another human being is wrong and for the state to sanction it is even worse

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