This. Deterrent effectiveness is quantifiable and repeated psychological studies show that increasing the expected chance of getting caught is a much higher de

This. Deterrent effectiveness is quantifiable and repeated psychological studies show that increasing the expected chance of getting caught is a much higher deterrent value than increasing the expected number of years behind bars. One's subjective feeling of deterrence is strongly influenced by one's natural subconscious desire for mob revenge. Cultural change away from mob revenge starts with changing the dialogue. The cost to society is roughly linear in the number of years behind bars, and the deterrent factor gets dramatically sub-linear pretty quickly as number of years behind bars increases. That money spent on guards, etc. and opportunity cost (including lost taxable income) of having a potentially productive member of society behind bars are better spent on better monitoring and other measures that increase the likelihood that offenders are prosecuted. Increasing publicity of convictions would presumably also be a pretty cheap way to reduce crime by increasing the perceived chances of getting caught. I would really like to see it be a common thing for criminals to cut plea deals including recording public service announcements publicizing that they got caught. Though, this would also probably make it harder for reformed ex-convicts to escape their pasts.