Rather than attempting to deter people from evil via religious traditions of Hell in the hereafter, we should instead use public funds to construct and operate Hell here on Earth.
Presuming a Constitutional amendment similar to that proposed in my last diary, Congress should simply appropriate tax money to be used in the design, construction, staffing, and operation of Federal facilities where all who enter abandon hope, and appropriate cruel and unusual punishments can be carried out on the inmates--for what will seem to them like eternity.
The deterrent value of a national system of Federal Hells would be immeasurable. Currently, psycho killers and twisted losers know in the back of their perverted minds, that the worst that can happen to them if they're caught is that they'll go to a Federal Supermax prison to live rent-free for life, with all costs covered by the taxpayers. No luxury to be sure, but hardly anything to inspire mortal dread. After all, it's a far better deal than being homeless on the street. Wouldn't you agree that a Federal inmate is far better treated and in far less personal peril than a homeless person? So there's no deterrent value whatsoever in the current justice system. And there's no meaningful punishment in it either. But if perps knew that they could legally be sent on a one-way trip to say, "Screamhell 4" under the desert in Utah, never to return... that thought would lurk in the back of their minds. Subliminally urging caution.
Imagine what a great jobs program it would be, building Hell on Earth! And the ongoing employment of workers and management to staff each Hell would be even more helpful to the economy. Motivated people to work with whips and spears and clubs and big oxygen cutting torches and wood chippers. Recruiting them would be no problem. Just poll the ranks of families bereaved and traumatized by psychos and molesters. You'd get volunteers by the thousands.
(You've got to admit that this, at the least, would make a splendid movie--Anthony Hopkins could be the warden, and the doomed inmates need not be fed by the taxpayers--aye, they eat their own, smallest first, summarily butchered and barbecued over the roaring fire-pits of Hell, Inc. facility no. 4.)