> Studies show that the length of sentence has little impact on criminal behaviour.

Is the purpose of punishment only to deter criminal behavior? How about expressing social condemnation for the committed criminal act, strengthening citizens' trust in the legal order based on the rule of law, increasing awareness of the danger of committing criminal acts and of the fairness of punishment, and enabling the perpetrator to rejoin the society.

Disincentivisation of recidivism, disincentivisation of others, isolation of dangerous individuals from society, sanitized vengeance on behalf of the victim would be the ones that someone with a different political persuasion would use. I’ve added a couple of yours to my list. Yours was a thought provoking post.

I generally agree, but don't all the latter items simply in the end have the desired result of deterring future criminal behavior?

If distracted driving was caught 95% of the time, and the sentence was something like 40 hours of community service (and escalated for repeat offenders in some manner), I don't think society has nearly as difficult of a moral problem on it's hands when a 19 year old kills a cyclist due to checking a text on their phone.

Studies repeatedly show "random" punishments (even if harsh) are simply not very effective vs. consistent enforcement. When you drop the hammer on someone who more or less got "unlucky" that day by engaging in what amounts to otherwise normalized behavior due to lack of enforcement - it gets kind of hard to see how that can be remotely effective at accomplishing much for society beyond vengeance. While that is important, it certainly isn't everything.

Doesn't all of that fall under the umbrella of "deter criminal behavior"?

Which has no impact on the punitive revenge seeking approaches of American institutions as a reflection of American citizens demands

Link to studies? That is a bold claim.

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf contains references.

Thanks!

60 days of community service means that most people won't think much about driving attentively. To put it very cynically, if I didn't care for people around me, 60 days of community service sounds like an OK forced retreat. However, we shouldn't rely on people's conscience to deter manslaughter, and instead have a dual-pronged approach - appeal to both people's conscience and fear of having to spend time in prison.

AFAICT some people drive inattentively daily. 60 days of community service for every time they drive is a lot more than a forced retreat.

Maybe they shouldn’t drive at all then?

Better yet, include pedestrian safety in NHTSA vehicle safety ranking (it was proposed in 2020 apparently)

> If everybody was guaranteed to get 60 days of community service every time they did something that could have killed a pedestrian then the behaviour would drop right off.

This would be fantastic

> Studies show that the length of sentence has little impact on criminal behaviour.

Does that study apply to this situation? Vehicular manslaughter is not premeditated. There are cases of drunk speeding drivers getting 10 days for killing someone: https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170126/old-town/ryne-san-h... Drivers would be more careful if they knew of cases where a driver got 15 years in prison for their negligence.

Vehicular manslaughter is not premeditated. Drunk driving and careless driving are intentional acts though, and are the acts that need to be enforced better.