"Can a country's democratic institutions survive when the primary emotion underlying so much of its social policy, and determining the allocation of a sizable proportion of its annual revenues, is revenge?...We will in short become a community in name only, an increasingly atomized continent in which the primary role of government is to instill fear of the law rather than respect for its integrity."

Good book on the topic of punishment vs. rehabilitation:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Furies-Punishment-Vengeance-I...