OneToughHerring

One theory is that in a way criminals who are caught and imprisoned should be viewed very much like disease carriers. They are isolated from the society when they are 'active' but once the disease has been cured they could re-join the society. The way it can be seen from a sociological viewpoint is that crime is like a disease or a social malaise and once we know what makes a criminal 'tick' we've learned something and that data can be used to prevent similar crimes from happening in the future, in a way creating a 'vaccine' against that particular crime.

IMO it is the sign of a societies strenght that it can take a criminal and make that person into a good citizen, not just kill him off in some horrid ceremony used to thirst some collective bloodlust akin to the ancient times when people were sacrificed to whatever diety.

I think people should be allowed to go with the 'biblical' rule, "eye for an eye" etc., that the death penalty represents. But then they shouldn't use any aspect of sociological sciences in their societies. Or any aspects of modern society. They should live like the Amish and kill off the criminals of their little backward community.