My experiences have been mixed:

During my career, I sent several soldiers away for long sentences(as a military prosecutor) to FT Leavenworth (for stealing weapons, sensitive items, NVG's etc). When I was doing my CAS3 rotation (Combined Arms and Services School) at Ft Leavenworth, I was asked to take our class on a tour of the DB - Disciplinary Barracks (i.e. the prison) -- I escorted the class there and we went by the cells of 3 of the guys I had
prosecuted -- they were very polite, called me "Sir" (and one even told the class that I was a good lawyer and that I had been very fair to him)

Fast forward 10 years -- as one of the mentors and architects of Iraq's Central Criminal Court of Iraq, as well as the senior prosecutor, we were fast-tracking trials of terrorists (who had placed IED's, killed US or other Coalition troops or other Iraqi's -- these included AQI - Al Qaeda in Iraq ) -- the CCCI court complex was located in the Red Zone -- while we had excellent security (ourselves bolstered by some extra security teams) -- we were recieving threats constantly that they would kill or capture us or harm our families -- this only strengthened our resolve -- of course, they could read our names on our uniforms and our ranks. Iraqi officers often told us we had prices on our heads.
I simply said I wanted to make sure they spelled my name right and gave them my card (MNF-I TF 134 with my name and rank) and to give it their best shot -- as we knew the word would filter back. Our court house got shot at quite a bit and the bad guys kept trying to hit it with mortars (they did finally hit it with a 120 mm round -- no casualties except it shredded our teleconferencing satellite dishes that we used to obtain testimony from troops who had re-deployed to the US).

The only one that bothered me: I testified against a lawyer in a disbarment proceeding (I was representing a doctor who had not been paid for rendering medical treatment for a car accident victim and discovered that the lawyer who was representing the car accident plaintiff -- the same guy who had not paid my doctor client -- had forged a name to the settlement check and had pocketed the money that should have gone to pay my doctor client.) I sued the laswyer and reported him to the bar. He was disbarred permanently and convicted of felony theft in a separate criminal proceeding (there were other pending disciplinary charges against him as he was simply a thief and a bad person) -- he showed up at our office several times unannounced when I was not there and harassed our paralegals, anonymous phone calls to me on my cell phone telling me to go pick out a coffin, then one day as I was stopped at a light, he yanked open my car door and threatened me --he noticed my pistol in my holster next to the console -- and then he filed a false complaint that I had pulled a gun and pointed it at him -- of course, at this point, the police and DA already knew he was harassing me so that went no where. It culminated with him cornering me at a gas station with two of his friends, threatening me (although I had a gun in my truck, I did not
retrieve it as there were about 10 people standing around who witnessed this event, so I felt relatively safe) followed by him showing up at my home on a Saturday morning -- my wife opened the door and yelled for me and by the time I got there, armed, he had run back to his vehicle and driven off. Each time we reported it and had a police report done. This was the only incident that bothered me simply because I was concerned for the safety of my wife and 2 boys.
I had a conference with our police chief (who was a retired FBI SAC) --
who is a very good officer and lived in our subdivision -- he told me I would have been justified shooting the disbarred lawyer when he yanked open my car door and threatened me and knew that I had shown restraint. He told me that if another incident happened at my home that I should do what was necessary to protect myself and my family. He was very frank and supportive and he trusted that I would act reasonably. The disbarred lawyer, at last report, had become a preacher/minister and moved to the northeren part of the state.