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I'll put this in bold so that everyone can see it over the noise.
Deterence is not the primary purpose of punishment!
If our concept of justice is solely limited to functional pragmatism, we've missed the point. Punishing someone for a crime they commit is not justified because of some future perceived value (deterence, getting them of the street, etc.) but because of their past act. Justice is retributive, or it is not justice. If it is pragmatic, it's simple social contract, nothing more.
-sm
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