So, imagine a violent crime; a robbery attempt goes awry, and a convenience store clerk is killed. The murderer (in a perfect incarceration system) is "rehabilitated" in a year. Should he be freed after 365 days?
I read about a case like this in Sweden. Kjell-Eric Eliasson, who was a soldier at the time, was sentenced in 1986 for a sadistic murder of a young single mother. He butchered her and dumped the corpse into a well outside his mother's farm.
The man was sentenced to a mental institution. He was treated for a single (1) year and then released to as "cured", much to the horror of the relatives of the murdered woman. Some 25 years later, in 2010, he lost his job as a highly paid government official, when the truth about his dark past hit the internet.
Was it right to release him? It seems he lived the next 25 years well, with a great career and paying his taxes. So society didn't need to be protected from him any more. But was it morally right? There is a perceived need of revenge, of punishment. Of some justice.
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Details of the case are here (use google translate to read) https://www.flashback.org/t1287612
And if "rehabilitation" is all that's required for freedom, it shows a disconcerting lack of value for the victims of crime.
[citation needed] for that claim.
I'm friends with a woman who works with prisoner rehabilitation and treatment of violent prisoners and sex offenders, and the work they do is scientifically sound, using evidence-based methods. There are very strong, proven casual links between the rehabilitation and recidivism.
Try, http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=sex+offender+evidence+ba...
> And if "rehabilitation" is all that's required for freedom, it shows a disconcerting lack of value for the victims of crime.
Indeed. "Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done." -- Lord Hewart
Imagine another incident, a careless driver who runs over someone at a stoplight because they're texting. How should this manslaughter be treated? With a remedial driving course?
In practice judging rehabilitation with perfect knowledge is impossible, and so are one year sentences for murder. In the real world we would balance out the likelihood of actual rehabilitation with concerns regarding public safety.