Jeremy Bentham

“ When a man has resolved upon a particular offense, the next object is to dispose him to do no more mischief than is necessary to his purpose: in other words, to do as little mischief as is consistent with the benefit he has in view. ”

“ But if a man must needs commit an offense of some kind or other, the next object is to induce him to commit an offense less mischievous, rather than one more mischievous: in other words, to choose always the least mischievous, of two offenses that will either of them suit his purpose. ”

“ To make sure of giving the value of the punishment the superiority over that of the offence, it may be of necessary, in some cases, to take into account the profit not only of the individual offence to which the punishment is to be annexed, but also of such other offences of the same sort as the offender is likely to have already committed without detection. ”

“ But the case is, that (setting aside the moral sanction, in the case where the force of it is expressly adopted into and modified by the political) the force of those other powers is never determinate enough to be depended upon. It can never be reduced, like political punishment, into exact lots, nor meted out in number, quantity, and value. The legislator is therefore obliged to provide the full complement of punishment, as if he were sure of not receiving any assistance whatever from any of those quarters. ”

“ It is further to be observed, that owing to the different manners and degrees in which persons under different circumstances are affected by the same exciting cause, a punishment which is the same in name will not always either really produce, or even so much as appear to others to produce, in two different persons the same degree of pain: therefore That the quantity actually indicted on each individual offender nay correspond to the quantity intended for similar offenders in general, the several circumstances influencing sensibility ought always to be taken into account. ”