My impression of people who believe that amping up the punishment until a person wants to be good, have a misunderstanding of human nature. When you’re always hitting somebody hard enough, fast enough, and often enough, you don’t get a person who desires to be good. You end up with somebody who becomes hardened It’s and more likely to commit worse acts than he previously,committed, because his conscience has been seared.
It’s one of the reasons why some communities experience more violence, because it is what the greater society has subjected them to.
It's Utopianism no different than any other form.