Retribution as justification for punishment is such a bad concept. Not only does it appeal to the worst human propensities--like revenge--but it inevitably leads to the monstrous abuses characteristic of the democratic(sic) US's penal system. Worse, by making bad people worse (both properly-convicted criminals and cops/jailers), it does evil of the worst kind to those people, to society as a whole, and especially to those innocents victimized by those made worse by the retributivist police/penal system. And in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan horror--perpetrated in the first instance by people carrying out retribution for real atrocities against their friends and families--to justify retributionism is to justify monstrosities. The "Black Widow" is the prototypical terrorist and the most sincere retributionist.
Shane Mage
"Mortals immortals, immortals mortals,
living their deaths, dying their lives"
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62