Crime and Punishment - what is punishment for?

Throughout my life I&rsquo;ve seen a lot of opinions about prison sentence length, fines, whether we should have the death penalty, what is cruel and unusual punishment, etc. In the 90&rsquo;s, for example, we had &ldquo;tough on crime&rdquo; laws, mandatory minimum sentences, &ldquo;three strikes&rdquo; laws, etc. Things always come full circle so it was no surprise (to me at least) that in the…