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I guess "stop regarding X as people" is sufficiently poorly defined that you can argue this (you can also claim "being against gay marriage is not regarding gay people as people", "not letting transwomen compete in female sports is not regarding transwomen as people", etc.) but it seems to require some incredible contortion to argue that Utilitarianism, which wants to treat criminals the exact same as everyone else is not treating criminals as people.
It seems to me that you're necessarily making the claim that Utilitarian doesn't treat anyone "as a person". Which, sure, poorly defined words let you say basically whatever you want (see: lots of philosophy). But then "Utilitarians stop regarding criminals as people" is a pretty misleading sentence when what you actually believe is that Utilitarians don't regard anyone as a person.
The plain version of your claim is
This makes it clear that "respectful" is being used in an extremely unusual way. And this wouldn't be too bad, except you clearly mean for "X is respectful" to imply "X is good" (or, at least, "X should be pursued via public policy").
I wish I had a name for this rhetorical trick -- where you convert a controversial word into a less controversial word, with the goal of claiming the original point. It's kind of a very specific form of Motte and Bailey.
Another example is that it's very controversial whether (e.g.) bats are conscious, so instead philosophers argue over whether bats have "qualia". To which I say: either "X is conscious iff X experiences qualia", in which case it's really unclear what value the concept of "qualia" is bringing to the discussion, or they're not equivalent, in which case claiming bats don't have qualia (and letting the shared valence finish the argument for you -- "bats aren't conscious") is bad (though effective) argumentation.
A third example is when politicians claim that "X deserves Y, and then letting "deserve" mutate into "good" in people's minds, so that people hear "giving Y to X is good policy".
Punishing someone who commits a wrong shows that you are treating Alice with agency which I agree is some measure of respect. Not punishing Alice ever when she wrongs someone implies the authority figure doesn't believe Alice is capable of making another decision.
We don't punish or show disappointment in an infant who poops their pants because they don't have any ability to control that action. Never punishing someone is the same thing morally.
There's a measure of respect inherent with punishment that the punished has the capacity to not do wrong.
That's still a motte and bailey because the original phrasing was "doing them a disservice". Normally, punishing someone is doing them a disservice.
Interesting, from my background punishment was something done out of love or at least concern for the punished person's future, I suppose that's limited to punishments short of death penalties. Not a pleasant or enjoyable experience but a necessary one like learning to eat healthy foods or exercise.
"Has a minor element of X" is not the same as "is for X".
Even if it's not the death penalty, part of the reason for the punishment is disabling the criminal (he can't rob you if he's locked up) and deterring other criminals. These can't reasonably be described as being done out of love, except in the Spanish Inquisition sense of "we kill you out of love".
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