Right, Janie. The idea of punishment is based on value judgement, while the idea of consequences is value neutral. Courts are not here to judge how "good" or "evil" someone is (nor can they make such a judgement), they are here to enforce the law in an unbaised fashion, with the purpose of maintaining a peaceful and harmonious society.

No human being is really equipped to decide how "good" or how "evil" someone else is...but they ARE equipped to decide whether someone else has violated commonly agreed-upon laws and rules of behaviour, and how to enforce existing laws. That's what we need to focus on. We can write novels about "good" and "evil", but we can't run a legal system based on those kind of value judgements.

I think that loss of freedom is usually the most devastating consequence of violating the law. Anyone who has lost his or her freedom feels the loss keenly in every waking moment, and that is the biggest deterrent to lawbreakers...the loss of their freedom.

Penal institutions should not be set up in a way that increases the chances of a first-time offender coming out worse than he was when he went in, but I think that's what is presently happening in a lot of our penal institutions. If so, it's a very big mistake.