Mathew O’keeffe (1989) wrote in Legal Notes No. 5 for the Libertarian Alliance some sensible conclusions as to the empirical results of the incentives promoted by retribution based criminal sentences:
The increase in criminality was matched by a decrease in apprehension; people were far less willing to “shop” their friends if they thought this would mean certain death. And the criminal himself was naturally far less likely to turn himself in, and, if caught, plead guilty. The juries themselves often chose to acquit a criminal rather than condemn him to an unfair punishment for a petty offense. The very great severity of punishments – in particular the irreversibility of the death sentence – led juries to be very cautious about their verdicts… The message is simple; the greater the punishment (“deterrent?”), the greater the crimes actually committed, the smaller the number of apprehensions, and the smaller the number of convictions.
Later sections of the article make me wonder if Walter Block ever used O’keeffe as a pen name:
[C]onvicted criminals could finance restitution by fighting to the death in televised gladiatorial combat or accepting roles in “snuff movies.” Robert Burrage (A Free Market in Human Organs, Economic Notes No. 10 Libertarian Alliance) has even made the suggestion that after death, the criminal’s body be reduced to spare parts and sold on the market! Perhaps the space age will offer less barbaric options; it could well offer a whole range of high pay, high risk, menial occupations. Criminals could be sent to work in perilous, frontier condition places to repay the more sizable restoration debts. A particularly attractive feature of this option would be that after a certain period away from earth, the effects of gravity on the body would be such that no criminal could ever live on earth again.
