Sorry, middlepath:  You need a (4:  "It depends."  And it depends because those answers cannot be used to cover every felon.  That must be why we have such a variety of ways to deal with them. 

I like number 3. For violent crimes, kill them all. They made their choice. The rest should be forced to work for the government at slave labor wages, doing the crap jobs no one else wants to do. If they commit another crime, kill them too. Enough is enough. We need to rid society of undesirable DNA.

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I say it depends on the crime. Murder, rape, child molesters.....#3  non violent felons # 1 but they only get one chance to make it work.     I had a brother -n-law  who is doing 25 to life....he had 2 non violent felony's. one night he got into a fight with his cheating girlfriend and was speeding, instead of pulling over for the police he made the  decision to try and get away.  he  was finally pulled over and was charge with a felony evading I believe?  25 to life!  the 3 strikes law had just came out.  What makes me sick is child molesters that are given 6 months and then set free to do it over and over!  KILL them!

I have been thinking about this after I read it. I agree with Alicen's point` "it depends". 

Take the recent case of the "praying robber"~ he went to commit an armed robbery and ended up leaving his bullet,the money and the woman unharmed.

Should he be treated the same way as a person who completed the crime,or the person who completed the crime with loss of life ? That is what justice should be about.

Some criminals clearly,with help ,are willing and able to rejoin society. Others not so much.

As for DNA~ one needs to look at the old nature,nurture question.

Good and evil exist in us all~ it is a question of choices.

I guess I like a mixture of 1 and 3 (lifetime incarceration, not death).  I think we have then give them the ability to rehabilitate or assimilate but it should also be a long and arduous task.  Giving them a glimmer of hope may be an incentive to change their life for the better. With that being said, I'm not sure some criminals can be rehabilitated.  Is it really possible to alter the mind of a pedophile or a stone cold serial killer?

Bear in mind we're really talking about people who are being released form prison--not those sentenced to death or life without.  Of course, should we release any back into society and what should be the standard to determine who goes back and who stays in?

The praying robber is going to go away for a long time.  He admitted to other crimes on the Oprah show!!!  Taking out the bullet doesn't take away from crimes committed up to that point.  There still the legal question of unlawful entry, the attempt to commit a crime, and the assault with a deadly weapon.  With that being said, he can use his jail time to better himself.   He can use his sentence as a chance to rehabilitate and make better choices.

I guess the main question is, "can they be rehabilitated?"  We can't leave all criminals in jail forever. 

I also believe our legal system is designed primarilly to punish.  It's up to the individual to rehabilitate himself.  He/she can't expect the system to do that.

 middlepath:  Surprisingly enough, in my hometown Sunday paper today there was a very good journalistic article about rehabilitation.  One of the interviewees for the story, an inmate In a state prison fairly near my town, was sentenced in 1989 for manslaughter (it was a street fight) and is serving a 58-year sentence.  During his (now) 20-year incarceration he has received an associate's degree in anthropology and educational psychology, plus a barber cosmetology license and carpentry training.  He has been seeking a sentence modification for an earlier release.  He says he understands the gravity of the crime he committed. 

The newspaper article quoted the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project, saying that it costs taxpayers $44 billion annually to house, guard and treat prisoners.  My state is not one of the ones that's pushing for early-release programs.  It's probably unlikely the prisoner described above will be released early -- not without a sentence modification. 

My ambivalence about the basic question hasn't abated; however, looking at the history of the above prisoner makes me believe that in some cases early release is probably warranted. 

If this prisoner had killed a friend or relative of mine, my opinion might differ. 

However, in the case of child predators, my opinion has not swayed one-tenth of a degree.  These people should, after the first conviction, be placed in prison until they're carried out in a box.  There may be a school of thought that holds out hope of rehabilitation of child molesters/predators, but in my opinion that's a school of fools. 

I recognize that jfrancis~ still my comparison stands.Is he as "bad" as the perpetrator who kills in the commission of a crime? Justice is by degree after all.

In their time in prison classes,victim restitution, and such  should be the standard on who gets out,make them work hard for re-entry into society.