Let's be clear here.
The system we have currently is NOT the system I am advocating.
I am not defending the modern prison state. I am opposing it.
OK, fair enough.
The punishments God authorized are restitution, corporal punishment, and death, depending on the crime. Pointing to America’s bloated incarceration rate does not refute my position. It refutes the prison-heavy, bureaucratic, sentimental mess we have now.
Correct me if I'm wrong (haha), so you want to follow the bible for punishments called for for various crimes. You are calling for death for murder, adultery, incest, blasphemy, sabbath violations, striking parents etc. Seems a little harsh. And corporal punishment would entail what? Public lashing? Flogging? I don't think you're going to get a lot of public support for such measures though. Would you be willing to water down biblical pronouncements... you know, go along to get along?
They are also socially destructive. They mix lesser offenders with hardened criminals, degrade them, harden them, and then dump them back into society worse than before. In many cases they function less like justice and more like state-run breeding grounds for further criminality.
That's true.
My point is that refusing to punish grave evil appropriately teaches the wrong lesson, sets a bad precedent, and corrodes society over time.
A just system reduces crime so effectively that such cases become extraordinarily rare to begin with. The goal is not that children would often need punishment, but that the social order produced by equal justice would make such cases almost unheard of.
It's quite interesting, the tension between the different scripture writers, some who emphasized the justice and retribution of God, versus those who emphasized the merciful nature of God.
You can find a verse in the Bible to support almost any point of view.
