AShepard comments on Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease - Less Wrong
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This reminds me of my personal philosophy of crime. The only reason to punish people for a crime would be if it a) set an example (to society and to the person) or b) kept them from commiting the crime or a similiar one again as they can't when their in jail or dead. The only problem with this is that it works in reverse. We could put people who haven't commited a crime in jail on the grounds that they are likely to or it helps society when their in jail.
You might check out Gary Becker's writings on crime, most famously Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. He starts from the notion that potential criminals engage in cost-benefit analysis and comes to many of the same conclusions you do.