Originally Posted by
Reynolds
I think he must pay as compensation to the victims, not as a punishment. If he suffers for that, so be it.
I thought your first post was a typo, and you meant that you didn't believe in punishment
for revenge, which I could pretty much agree with.
There are several recognized rationales for criminal punishment:
1) specific deterrence: i.e. deterring the criminal from repeating his crime,
2) general deterrence: deterring others from comitting similar crimes,
3) incapacitation: preventing the individual from recidivating by incarceration,
4) rehabilitation.
5) retribution.
Retribution is the weakest to justify, with the only real argument in its favor being the prevention of vigilantism by the State taking retribution, as opposed to individuals.
As for the other 4 rationales, while you can debate their relative effectiveness, try running a society, where there are no crimes, and no punishment, and only civil compensation.
If the only penalty for stealing a loaf of bread is having to pay the cost of the bread if you happen to get caught, there's going to be a lot of bread stolen.
And if the only cost to killing a person is that you have to pay actual damages in a wrongful death suit, then why not kill your hated spouse, if you've got the coin.
Not a very workable system.