The traditional concept of the purpose of punishment is that it consists of four aspects: deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution and isolation. (Hall "General Principles of Criminal Law".)

First is the concept of deterrence. This assumes that the existence of a period of incarceration or other adverse consequence will prevent people from committing crimes because they will not want to suffer the consequence. Alternatively, deterrence works on a broader level, preventing criminals from committing future crimes by fostering a desire to avoid the adverse consequences they have suffered in the past. In formulating the Three Strikes Law, it was not accepted that the existence of an adverse consequence such as a period of imprisonment based on conventional concepts was effective in deterring the criminal population from committing new criminal acts. First, it was rejected that the average person does not commit crimes because of the existence of severe consequences. In other words, it was not accepted that the reason the average person does not commit serious crimes was because they would suffer a lengthy incarceration.

Instead, it was concluded the primary deterrent to serious criminal behavior was the existence of a value system. The criminal justice system does not create or establish a value system; it reacts to a disregard of an acceptable value system. While it may be true that minor crime is deterred through the existence of adverse consequences, it was not accepted that those people who committed serious crime or represented a consistent threat to the community of antisocial behavior were deterred by the existence of different terms of punishment for different crimes. It was concluded that the average person did not know what the penalty was for stealing a car and that the existence of a specific length of term of 16 months to three years was not itself a deterrent to the average person stealing a car. Likewise, it was not accepted that the average person knew the penalty for residential burglary was two, four, or six years, let alone did not commit burglaries because of the two, four, or six year term. The notion was rejected that the average person does not engage in felonious conduct because of the existence of specific terms of

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