This is a good question, but the direction he's going with it seems like it might be advocating throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's true, we're not

This is a good question, but the direction he's going with it seems like it might be advocating throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's true, we're not punishing the right people, and the people we punish are frequently being punished too much for comparatively minor crimes. The solution isn't to eliminate punishment, it's to fix the system so that the bigger criminals don't get away with their crimes because of their wealth and political connections. And for things that aren't against the law but are devastating, maybe we need to look at changing the law. However, even here, civil suits usually serve to deter such behavior: many things aren't technically "illegal", but they are actionable "torts", which you can sue people for. The McDonald's coffee case is a good example here, and shows why civil suits, though frequently derided, actually serve as a check on really bad behavior that doesn't have specific laws passed against it yet: McD's kept their coffee heated to dangerously-high temperatures, despite other people being injured by it in drive-thrus, and when it happened to this woman, she sued (wanting them to pay her medical bills, as she sustained serious burns) and won a very large punitive judgment as the jury felt that McD's was negligent. There's no law saying how hot coffee should be served (and that's likely to be micromanaging and not a good way to run society), but it is entirely possible to be sued for "negligence" when you do something that gets someone hurt, so there is a big incentive to not do that, and to make sure you don't seriously injure someone through your carelessness.