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Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

in case of such sentences - where person is de-facto removed from the society forever, as even the 30-40 years means that the person will be different and the society will change unrecognizable - i see how it would make sense just to send the person to live on some other territory, continent, planet, asteroid, etc...

Long prison terms have 2 functions - deterrent and removing dangerous people from society. Both of this can be accomplished if the place where convicts are to be send is remote and harsh. Such approach would also allow to avoid feeding such a beast as the prison guards union.

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> i see how it would make sense just to send the person to live on some other territory, continent, planet, asteroid, etc...

And then even your prisons declare independence sooner or later. Look at Australia.

What happened there?

I can't tell if you are being serious,but in case you really don't know, the British Empire used to send its convicts to Australia, as it was a new colony and was in need of as many people as possible. So instead of putting those people in prison, they sent them off to Australia, without the ability to ever come back.

I was being serious, I don't know the entire history of every country. Thanks.

Starting in 1788, Britain used a policy of 'Transportation' to colonies in Australia to relieve overcrowding in its prisons at home. Of course, Australia is now an independent country. The book 'A Commonwealth of Thieves' by Thomas Keneally provides a very readable narrative of the first British people to settle there.

Australia never declared independence. The Queen of England is our head of state.

In fact, several popular referendums for forming an independent republic have failed.

relevant reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia

Think of her as being simultaneous monarch of several countries that are now independent of each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Act_1986

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/we-only-became-indep...

"While the public was not aware of the true position, the politicians were. Political leaders saw the price paid for being colonial dependencies of the British crown and it was too high. After years of negotiations the constitutional links between Australia and Britain were finally broken , not by a referendum but by legislation passed by the state, commonwealth and British parliaments. On March 3, 1986, these acts, the Australia Acts, came into force. They state that the British government is no longer responsible for the government of any state and that the Westminster parliament can no longer legislate for Australia. Most important, they transferred into Australian hands full control of all Australia's constitutional documents. So March 3, 1986, is the day Australia achieved complete independence from Britain. Happy Australian Independence Day."

The Queen of England is also still nominally head of state of Canada. Not that this has much effect in practice.

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