"I hand him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved." In these words of Paul, in spite of some problems in understanding them correctly, we may see a principle of a Christian approach to punishment for sins and crimes. In the Bible, "flesh" is much more than our physical body: it is the total of all tendencies towards evil, towards selfishness, the destructiveness indicated by the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, lust, covetousness, gluttony, envy, anger and sloth. Punishment should be a freeing of the person, as for as possible, from all these evil tendencies so that the person, body, spirit, soul may be saved.

In recent years many people have learned about the Enneagram, a system of recognizing nine different character types, and presumably this knowledge has helped them improve their personalities. In the same way, the "Seven Deadly Sins" can be seen as seven character types, which can lead to sin and various forms of injustice. These personality tendencies can be offset by the virtues of charity, love, mercy, compassion as exemplified in the practice of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, based partly on Jesus' teaching about the Last Judgement (Mt 25:31-36)