> All I am calling for is that punishment meets the crime. Not meets the crime and exceeds it in order to prevent unrelated parties from committing the same cri

> All I am calling for is that punishment meets the crime. Not meets the crime and exceeds it in order to prevent unrelated parties from committing the same crime. That doesn't make a lot of sense. The whole point of the criminal-justice system is to attempt to deter criminal behavior. It's practically definitional. Although the systems have often been merged in recent times, many places (including some parts of the US) had two entirely separate court systems: a "court of law" for the enforcement of laws by the government, and the imposition of punitive sanctions to discourage behaviors by making them unprofitable to engage in, and "courts of equity" wherein individuals could bring suits directly against each other and where the judges had broad discretion to impose various remedies (e.g. specific performance). An example would be if your neighbor stole one of your cows: the government (often in the form of a sheriff or magistrate or similar) could decide to go after them in a court of law, because having people stealing each others' livestock is socially corrosive, hence why it's illegal. But you as the owner of the cow could petition a court of equity for relief, independently of the government's decision to pursue action in a court of law. The court of equity's remedy might basically be "give back the cow", or if they had already eaten the cow, maybe they'd tell them to give you an equivalent cow instead. There are a few US states that still maintain these dual systems: Delaware is the most well-known one, and its Court of Chancery deals with lots of contract disputes and such between private parties. Tennessee and a few other states are similar. AFAICT the existence of courts of law (or their equivalents) are almost universal features of complex civilizations and probably governments generally. If there's no punishment for breaking the law, you don't have laws, merely polite suggestions.