I’m not sure there is a justification for your point, but I hear the point.
The counterpoint is that retribution MUST be a goal of the state, because if the state does not provide a sanitized replacement of what some surviving victims of crime will naturally want to do.
Put it this way: if someone killed my son, I would quite naturally want them dead. But then I would be killing someone’s son, and I’m sure you can detect the problem there.
If the state provides an implicit contract to everyone that the result of citizen on citizen violence will contain some sanitized version of retribution that substitutes for eye-for-an-eye justice, then overall violence will be reduced by the severance of the cycle.
It's not about retribution or revenge, but costs (which are way beyond just monetary).
That's also why it's not up to the wronged personally to decide, but the State (the process; but other people, their peers).
If the victim of a horrific triple-homicide (let's say their family) decided to "forgive and forget", and let someone truly destructive free (which letting them live out gives the risk of, like when violent criminals were released due to overcrowding and COVID), they would be externalizing all the associated costs/risks of having that person live or be free onto us and the rest of society.
Yes, it needs serious controls around it (the few times the option is actually used). But like we see with some officials, the pendulum has swung so far the other way where even violent crime is sometimes downplayed out of "tolerance" and "empathy", pitting the value of his rough childhood against the expectation of safety of your child.
Don't state an opinion as fact. There's many examples of the state letting people off, then the family taking matters into their own hands, with public approval. Retribution is important for those who hurt others.
