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I disagree. There is no evidence deterrence works, and I think it's very unlikely that there are people who want to commit sexual assault who would decide that it's not worth the risk if more people were punished. I don't think people work that way.

If you are thinking about citing the Italian study[0] that people always cite in respond arguments against deterrence. My response is that it's way more likely that 1 month less in prison is what caused the lower re-offending rare, not the threat of 1 month more in prison if they re-offend.

[0]: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/599286

I am okay with that. I don't gain anything by another person's suffering. It would make me feel worse, not better, and it would make the world a worse place because prison generally makes people worse. It would also expose other prisoners to a predator they can't avoid as easily as someone on the outside can. It would be a lose-lose for everyone.

Sure, the statistics are not very good, but we don't have anything better. We have some evidence that property crime has gone down relative to other parts of the country (and much better evidence for homicide, which doesn't have the same under-reporting risk), and no evidence (as far as I know) for the opposite.

Yes, I would say I have. I have been sexually assaulted for example, but that doesn't mean I want the person who did it to suffer as well. That would just mean more suffering.

Some relevant links:

https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/

https://citycrimestats.com/statistics/

https://applieddivinitystudies.com/sf-crime-2/

Punishment/revenge is satisfying to a lot of people, but I'm repulsed by it. I don't feel an instinct to punish people who have wronged me, and I feel just as bad for people who are suffering regardless of what they did before. I wonder what makes me different from people who favour punishment. Is it just because I was never punished as a child, or is there a neurological difference?

I don't think that's true at all. People say that crime increased in San Francisco because of the more progressive DA, but ignore that crime increased less in San Francisco than nationwide.