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DeVliegendeHollander comments on Stupid Questions March 2015 - Less Wrong
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I have a nasty hunch that one of the social functions of punishment is to prevent personal revenge. If it is not harsh enough, victims or their relatives may want to take it into their own hands. Vendetta or Girardian "mimetic violence" is AFAIK something deeply embedded into history, and AFAIK it went away only governments basically said "hey, you don't need to kill your sisters rapist, I will kill him for you and call it justice system". And that consideration has not much to do with recidivism. Rather, the point here is to prevent further escalation: his relatives, in turn, cannot try to enact vendetta on the government. So it seems it is at least partially rooted in stopping blood revenge chains by the government actually performing a blood revenge, once. And thus if recidivism stats figure out 3.5 months in prison are enough, we see blood revenge coming back.
As well it should. Frankly 3.5 months aren't enough for deterrent, and are almost certainly not enough to prevent recidivism. Let's put it this way: if the stats say 3.5 months are enough to prevent recidivism then the most likely explanation is that the stats are bogus.
The idea that punishment through a legal system exists to deter revenge is an idea I've been hearing for decades.
According to my Criminology courses the judiciary system serves both functions: channeling the vindictive intuitions of the victims (or their families) in a more peaceful direction and reducing future crime (both by scaring possible offenders and by punishing actual offenders).
It's actually fairly explicit in the Torah, specifically in Numbers chapter 35. The Mosaic code there established cities of refuge to which killers were to be allowed to travel and be judged, where they would be free of revenge from those wronged until the priests decided whether their offense was murder, manslaughter, negligence, or accident, and imposed the appropriate penalty.