Let the punishment fit the crime
Meaning: Penalties should be proportional and appropriate to the offense committed.
Origin: From Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado (1885), in which the Emperor of Japan sings of his "object all sublime": to "let the punishment fit the crime." His inventively grotesque punishments are the joke — W. S. Gilbert was mocking the idea as much as stating it.
Equivalents in French, Spanish, and Japanese
- French: Que la punition soit à la mesure du crime (literally: Let the punishment be proportionate to the crime)
- Spanish: Que el castigo sea proporcional al delito (literally: Let the punishment be proportional to the crime)
- Japanese: 罪に見合う罰を (Tsumi ni miau batsu wo) (literally: Let the punishment be commensurate with the crime)
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