So one of the ironic things about punishment is that there's widespread agreement about the relative seriousness of crimes, but there's not agreement about why we are punishing. So if you were to poll people and ask, you know, give them a list of crimes— murder, rape, robbery, petty theft — there would be widespread agreement that murder is more serious than rape and rape is more serious than petty theft. But there would not be agreement on whether murderers should receive the death penalty, life imprisonment, or a very long term of years; or whether somebody who commits petty theft should be put in jail. So there's not necessarily agreement on how much we punish, and there's not agreement on why we punish. Now one of the things about the various theories of punishment is they can lead to very different places. It may be the case that somebody has committed petty theft and from a pure desert perspective would warrant a fairly low punishment. But it could also be the case that the person, if released, would continue committing theft. And perhaps the probability of detection might be fairly low. And so, what it takes to rehabilitate and deter somebody may require, in some cases, significantly more punishment than what you might think in the abstract the person deserves. So the theories of punishment can pull in very different directions. And sometimes the reverse is true too. Sometimes somebody commits a murder very rationally but if released, would never do it again, and doesn't need much punishment for deterrence — and yet the person has committed a very grave crime. And so you might think that on the retributive side, the person deserves a great punishment, but if you were looking at it purely from a rehabilitation or deterrence perspective, maybe it would be quite light. Although it might be arguable deterrence is not just for the individual, but also for society, so perhaps if we give a light punishment, society will not be deterred even though this individual is not likely to re-offend. But the point in all these examples is that there is tension between these theories of punishment. They don't all settle on the same magnitude of punishment. For those who are going to practice in criminal law, having knowledge of who we punish, how much and why, I think is critical. Most criminal defendants will plead guilty. The question will be one of how much punishment to give them and why. And so to be able to talk in the language of rehabilitation and retribution is critically important for arguing before judges about what is deserved, or arguing and negotiating with prosecutors and defense attorneys about how much we should be punishing an individual.