Think about gangsters in Chicago in the 20s and 30s. There was not infrequently killings by one organized crime group against another rival, the most notorious of these being the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. In parts of Southern California during the 80s and 90s there was also gang violence, gang members would shoot rival gang members. Not only that but gang members were often unable to leave their gang, if they did they would be killed. It's still going on in Mexico. Suffice to say that being a member of a criminal gang does present a significant risk to one's life. Some of these gang members, like in Detroit and Chicago (80s) actually didn't expect to live long. I watched a TV documentary where they interviewed former members now in their 40s who said they were surprised they survived. They weren't thinking long-term consequences at the time, they were living life in the moment. If you think about this, from one perspective these killings are analogous to the death penalty. Sort of a natural consequence to their chosen lifestyle. Living a life of crime like that could very likely end up in your death. Yet this doesn't apparently do much to dissuade these gang members from carrying on crime. The death penalty is considered the most severe of possible punishments. If the risk of dying doesn't deter to them, the risk of any other punishment certainly won't. It doesn't make much sense to have unjustifiably long prison sentences with the intent of trying to deter common criminals from committing crimes. In most cases it doesn't have the intended outcome, and it just ends up putting those people in prison for far longer than is morally justified by what they did. As an old saying goes: certainty of punishment is a better deterrent than the harshness of punishment.
Some of you say criminals should be removed from society as a reason besides just punishment. Well if that's the case send them off to an island. (I mean no need to sentence them to a lifetime of harsh punishment just to remove them from society, other options should exist)
Deterrence often doesn't operate? Well, by gosh! The secret, and surprisingly the hero of death penalty analysis Ehrlich gives the game away: its more about legal economic opportunities. Offer those opportunities and crime rates floor. Not sure the right will like the message mind you...
