But from a Buddhist understanding there is no necessity at all for society to impose retribution. The law of karma guarantees that there is no escape from the results of our thoughts, words and deeds. Karma is a natural law and unlike human justice it cannot be influenced or deviate from its proper unfoldment. Perhaps the threat of incarceration can prevent some criminal acts, but the effectiveness of harsher punishment as a stronger deterrence has often been questioned statistically. Another central teaching of the Buddha is the Law of Impermanence.
Nothing whatsoever remains fixed even for two consecutive moments, least of all the human psyche.
An enlightened criminal justice system makes as its first goal the rehabilitation and restoration of the wrong-doer to the community. There have been some hopeful experiments in this direction, such as the use of healing circles borrowed from out First Nations tradition. But all too often our prisons are nothing but a prolonged exercise in brutalization. The inmates return to society at the end of their time worse than they went in. However there are rare cases of amoral monsters who need to be segrated from society for everyone's protection.