Quote Originally Posted by Malevicton View Post
Except it's not both, as I said. They don't learn the lesson, but you get some free dopamines from feeling morally superior. That's the only effect.
I think you underestimate the effect that "You don't get to play this game for a while; keep it up and you never will again." has on a lot of toxic players. Look at League of Legends (which is one of the few games to publish this kind of data): the vast majority of people who get banned once never get banned again, and their rate of reports drops off after their ban ends.