It’s a twist of the logic. Having a stiffer penalty won’t stop someone from deciding to be an anti-social menace. They won’t weigh the consequences and see a difference between 5 years and 10 years for example.

And I’d agree that high functioning time preference and long term planning isn’t a strength of most violent criminals.

Believing there is no punishment (or a very small likelihood which is what DC is) would explode crime. See porch pirates.

So they say longer sentences to obscure reality. We want say…5 years for being a felon with a gun with the serial number her shaved off,,, that seems reasonable. They get zero too often.

They hear “longer sentences” because 5 is more than 0 and repeat mindlessly “longer sentences don’t reduce crime”.

My fellow citizen… we want A sentence… not 40 years for shoplifting,