personally i believe that on a first offence  the liberal avenue should be taken. the criminal should get whatever help he or she needs in order to become a useful member of society. if this includes rehab, education, whatever then so be it. once rehabilitated they should be able to put his past behind them and legally say that they've not been in prison as this could prevent them reintegrating into society.

if they reoffend then things should start getting tougher up to the point where it's deemed that they are actually unable under any circumstances to integrate with society so they should be locked up with others of their kind and put to work on things like road clearence or other areas where they can make a useful contribution wilst under guard and unable to harm others. there should be no possibility of parole or release ever in this case.

i do believe that for certain crimes the death penalty makes sense however as dom says until detection methods are 100% it's an emotive issue and probably has more to do with revenge than justice.

cheers

julian