§ 28 The Purposes of Criminal Justice; Deterrent Punishment
The ends of criminal justice are four in number, and in respect of the purposes so served by it, punishment may be distinguished as (1) Deterrent, (2) Preventive, (3) Reformative, and (4) Retributive. Of these aspects the first is the essential and all-important one, the others being merely accessory. Punishment is before all things deterrent, and the chief end of the law of crime is to make the evildoer an example and a warning to all that are like-minded with him. Offences are committed by reason of a conflict between the interests, real or apparent, of the wrongdoer and those of society at large. Punishment prevents offences by destroying this conflict of interests to which they owe their origin—by making all deeds which are injurious to others injurious also to the doers of them—by making every offence, in the words of Locke, “an ill bargain to the offender.” Men do injustice because they have no sufficient motive to seek justice, which is the good of others rather than that of the doer of it. The purpose of the criminal law is to supply by art the motives which are thus wanting in the nature of things.