Karma , firstly ,is not a punishment , we know that what we dish out shall come back to us in at least, equal measure.
The point of karma , is to teach us that our actions, have effects on people, for example , the men who tortured sir william wallace, in 1305, had no inderstanding of karma,if they had of , they would not have taken the life of william wallace, in such a cruel fashion.
so in the 1800s, william wallace reincaranted as prince albert victor, and took the lives of 5 woman, those woman were the reincarantions of the men that killed sir william.
when you cause suffering to others, you dont feel that pain , you dont understand the misery that is inflicted onto that person, so you reincarante , and suffer the same fate by the person who you killed.
Then and only then does the soul register , that torturing someone , is painful , and hurtful both emotionaly , and physicaly,
some poeple these days will torture poeple, becuase they dont know its wrong, so they will be sewing the seeds for future lives, but eventualy all will learn there lessons , untill they return back to there original state of unconditional love.
karma there for is not a punishment , its a form of learning.