Sentence "Attempted" Crimes The Same As Successful Ones

Thanks a lot to MastuDbtor for his post.Rather than going for headings like 'Rebuttal to Rebuttal Argument #2 & Counter-Rebuttal 1st Rebuttal', it will be better if discuss the issues topic by topic. I hope it will make the debates easier to follow.==Burden of Proof==Let me begin the post by again reminding my opponent and the voters about the burden of proof. It is my opponent’s task to present evidence that attempted crimes should be treated in exactly the same way as successful crime. If he fails to meet this requirement - I win by default. My task is to just show that his case is not water-tight. All that I need to do is to cast reasonable doubt on his arguments.Till now, my opponent's case consists only of some unsubstantiated assertions. Unless he does present some evidence to back up his claims, I am heading for a win by default.==Retribution==I presented evidence that retribution is an integral part of justice. I presented evidence from The Holy Bible, The Holy Quran, work of philosophers like Emmanuel Kant, Judgments of The Supreme Court of United States of America and also the Indian Penal Code, which is the bedrock of Indian judicial system. I thought I had prepared a foolproof case covering all eventualities. And yet I was simply not prepared for my opponent’s line of attack. He simply dismissed all these sources as IRRATIONAL and he insists that all of them should be 'consigned to the history books'. I am not sure whether I should list my reaction as 'amazed' or 'amused'.Retribution has to be integral part of any 'just' judicial and criminal system. The criminal has violated certain rights of the victim. In such a case, it is the task of the system to ensure that the perpetrators do not go unpunished. The criminal should never gain from his actions but rather should be made to face the consequences of what he has done. Unless this happens, victims (relatives in case of murders) will never get a sense of closure and would consider the system to be unjust. People have pointed out that the retribution is the only guaranteed result of punishment [1].Many crimes (especially murder) cannot be undone. This is a drawback of any system - whether based on retribution or not.My opponent claims that retribution is just a fancy term for revenge. I agree. He goes on to point out what will happen in the society if everybody starts taking revenge. He is clearly confused between revenge taken by individual and retribution as one of the component of a judicial system. Individual actions will indeed destabilize the society as they will be based on emotions more than evidence and can easily get out of hand. However a judicial system awards a punishment only in case the crime is clearly proved. A strong criminal and judicial system guarantees that the poorest and weakest can take revenge (get justice) against the mighty and powerful. It can be argued that if retribution is not a component of judicial system then vigilante justice would be justified. Pro has asserted that 'rationality' ignores sunken cost. This is a concept valid in the world of business and finance. People who have died and people who undergo trauma as a result of crime are not 'sunken cost'. Human justice and human emotions are not business investments, where you analyze which option will give you the maximum returns in purely financial terms.My opponent has conceded (by dropping the argument) that retribution entails successful criminals should be given bigger punishment. ==Incapacitation==I will have to remind Pro that it is his task to present evidence.I agree that the source I presented talked about people who committed crime and were not caught the first time. However it can be generalized to say that a person who is partially successful is more likely to repeat the crime than someone who failed completely. As far as I am concerned, indicatory evidence is more than what is needed. I would have been successful even without it by casting doubts on any study he presented. He has not presented any evidence whatsoever.Consider the following two scenarios:1. A criminal commits crime and succeeds, is arrested, punished and released. As a result of his initial success, he commits more crime.My opponent admits that this is possible. If he admits it to be possible, he has to explain why it should not be considered as part of the punishment process.2. A criminal commits crime and fails, is arrested, punished and released. He is motivated by failure to commit the crime again.I would further like to ask my opponent, which scenario is more likely. I would like to submit that the first one appears more likely than the second. If my opponent disagrees, it is his burden to provide the evidence. In the second case, the criminal is also more likely to be caught. My opponent thinks that the second criminal might learn from other inmates in prison. This is a problem with the prison system which is irrelevant to this debate.==Deterrence==My argument about jumping red-lights was not a straw-man. It was an example to prove that deterrence is not the ONLY goal of criminal system. It is a point he has tacitly conceded by explaining in his own way how 'harms' of such a system are more than the 'good'. My argument was that deterrence alone is not sufficient as argument for giving same punishment to both kinds of criminals. The argument is extended.==Rehabilitation==Pro attempts a straw-man of his own here. We have agreed in the beginning that several factors may be considered while awarding sentence. He acknowledges that success may have something to do with ruthlessness. But he lists other factors which could indicate ruthlessness. I am not against considering other factors. What the Pro needs to explain is why success of the crime should not be considered as criteria, when it is acknowledged that the ruthlessness does affect outcome of crime.It is possible that in a particular case, the criminal planned a crime for a long time with use if firearms. And yet when the time arrived, he hesitated a bit, giving a chance to victim to fight back or escape. None of the factors my opponent has listed covers this kind of hesitation. This possibility further strengthens my argument that success of crime should be considered as a factor. Again, I am not arguing that this should be the only criteria.At the risk of repeating myself for the Nth time, let me repeat. It is the burden of Pro to provide evidence that it is equally difficult to rehabilitate a successful and unsuccessful criminal.I am looking forward to evidence from my esteemed opponent.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...