Another is by setting punishments so that the efficient acts will still be committed even though the perpetrator is liable. Compare the efficiency of imprisonment, flogging, and stigma as punishments. Some punishments are more efficient in the sense of having a lower ratio of punishment cost to amount of punishment. 2.Stigma produces a net benefit, since the information generated by conviction provides net value to potential employers etc. Flogging has punishment cost roughly equal to amount of punishment.
Imprisonment has punishment cost equal to amount of punishment plus cost of maintaining the prison.
So the inefficiency, the ratio of punishment cost to amount of punishment, is greatest for imprisonment, then flogging, then stigma. Adding in incapacitation provides a benefit from imprisonment, so might conceivably make it a more efficient punishment than flogging, and perhaps even than stigma. A particular crime creates an amount of damage D each time it is committed. A. Assume that we can and do, at no cost, catch and punish the perpetrator of half the offenses. Expected punishment should be equal to damage done, so that crimes will only be committed if the gain to the criminal is greater than the loss to the victim.