The case for releasing violent offenders

We also incarcerate people as a deterrent—so others won’t commit similar crimes. But the research of Mark Kleiman (and others) suggests that to serve as an effective deterrent, punishment needs to be swift and certain. What we have is the opposite. We hand out severe punishments, but we do so inconsistently, and with long lags between the crime itself and the imposition of a sentence. (Kleiman argues—persuasively—that implementing less severe punishment more consistently and more swiftly is a formula for both less crime and less incarceration.)