people who are innocent of any crime, or of the crime for which hey are punished. In some situations punishing a scapegoat who is widely believed to have committed a particular crime will have a very strong deterrent effect on others who had been contemplating crimes, particularly if the general public remains unaware that the victim of the punishment is in fact innocent. In such cases, it seems that we would be justified in punishing an innocent person an unattractive consequence of this theory. Any plausible deterrent theory of punishment will have to meet this objection
IT DOESN'T WORK
Some critics of punishment as deterrence argue that it simply doesn't work. Even extreme punishments, such as the death pen alty, don't deter serial killers; milder punishments, such as fines and short periods of imprisonment, don't deter thieves. This sort of criticism relies on empirical data. The relation between types of punishment and crime rates is extremely difficult to work out, as there are so many factors which can distort the of the data. However, if it could be shown conclusively that punishment had little or no deterrent effect, this would be a devastating blow for this particular justification of punishment