I had dinner in a terrific Indonesian-French restaurant (sometimes fusion really works) with six judges. First we discussed the widespread belief that harsher punishments will lead to less crime – there is no evidence that this is true. But politicians and parts of the electorate seek comfort in this false belief.
At best one could argue that the desire for revenge is only fulfilled when the offender is going to spend a considerable time in a detention center i.e. rot away in prison. But whether revenge should be an important part of the judicial system is debatable.
Then we talked about the question whether incarceration itself is outdated. But what would be the alternative? One judge suggested that we send offenders to prison in order to protect them from vigilant justice. This is an interesting take: detention centers exist in order to protect criminals from vendetta and other sorts of vengeance.