alt Hacker News> The deterrence argument is used to throw the book at people committing minor crimes like shoplifting
And it doesn't work there, so why would it work for impaired driving?
You seem to be operating under the idea that because she didn't go to jail, there were no consequences. This seems false.
> And it doesn't work there, so why would it work for impaired driving?
It does actually. See how thieves resident in Florida travel to New York to work because of the different enforcement regimes for one of the clearest possible examples[1].
Even if deterrence didn’t work at all putting people in prison is good because of incapacitation. Committing crimes is stupidly right tailed[2]. Every career criminal in jail for a year is a year society doesn’t suffer their crimes.
[1] https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/02/02/cnns_john...
[2] https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-e...