Passage Summary: Stopping crime depends on how scary the punishment is and how likely you are to actually get it. If the punishment is too scary, juries might let people go free, which actually makes the threat of punishment less effective.

Conclusion: Increasing a penalty might actually result in a decrease in the deterrent power of judicial punishment.

Reasoning: Deterrence is a product of both the severity of a penalty and the likelihood of receiving it; if a penalty is too harsh, juries may refuse to convict, thereby lowering the likelihood of punishment.

Analysis: The logic here relies on a relationship where a total outcome is determined by two interacting factors. Because increasing one factor (severity) can trigger a decrease in the other (likelihood), the overall result (deterrence) can suffer. When looking for a parallel, focus on a scenario where maximizing one part of a system inadvertently undermines another part, leading to a counterproductive result. You want to find an argument that follows this 'A times B equals C' structure where A and B are inversely related.