Our “common sense” tells us that the more severely we punish criminals, the less crime we’ll have and the better off society will be. Experience, though, tells us otherwise. Because severe punishment both seems like it ought to act as a deterrent and gratifies our desire for vengeance, it’s a popular public policy ploy. It becomes an institutionalized form of anger. But it doesn’t work. We just end up with a whole new set of problems. You end up with the disaster that is the California penal system. Their “Three strikes and you’re out” policy was exactly the kind of “get tough on crime” measure that was supposed to get all the bad elements out of society. It has turned into an unsustainable nightmare. Carry this logic to its extreme and you get Arizona’s Sheriff Joe or Joe Stalin.