French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

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Law doesn't seek to punish but to rehabilitate. Act of taking freedom away from the criminal is violent enough. Treating them badly is just a sign of unfair/poor society that cannot maintain (afford to keep) it's promise to be civil to all citizens.

> Law doesn't seek to punish

Then who is tasked with delivering justice to the victims?

Must justice include punishment? If someone hits me, I'd much rather they take responsibility, apologise, and work on themselves to become a better person, than simply get locked up for a while.

Those are not the only two options that they can choose from. And being hit is a very minimal example. Would you say the same for rape? No punishment required; just apologise and work on yourself?

You skipped the “take responsibility”. In case of a more serious crime a simple apology is indeed not enough. But it should still be possible to proceed with something more productive for everyone than putting the perpetrator behind bars. As you say, there are many options.

Take responsibility is just a euphemism, though. For some people that is someone going behind bars. What do you actually mean?

Apply the same thought process to ‘punishment’. Those who spend a lot of time in prison seem to come out worse and reoffend.

How is that helpful?

This sort of thinking always misses that part of the reason for punishment is deterrent of others.

I think most people who commit a crime either do it in the heat of the moment, or believe that they're very unlikely to get caught. The distant prospect of punishment doesn't apply in either case.

I guess there are some edge cases. Drug smugglers for example are probably aware of the rough probability of detection and weigh it up against the length of jail time. But I reckon Sarkozy thought he'd just get away with it and didn't even consider what the potential punishment would be.