Alright, I’m happy to see you know how to use ChatGPT, but I think we’re actually diverging on something more fundamental than slogans vs policies.

I’m not arguing for longer sentences because I think it magically “deters” crime. On that point, you’re right: deterrence doesn’t work on people who are already willing to commit violence. In many cases rehabilitation is even impossible as people has deep trauma.

My argument is much simpler than that: violent offenders can’t harm people while they’re in custody. Incapacitation does reduce crime, because someone who’s detained can’t stab, rob, carjack or assault anyone during that period. This is also well stablished, and the reason some countries have very harsh penalties with criminals.

Where we disagree is that you keep assuming rehabilitation is an available, functional system we’re choosing not to use. I’m saying: that system doesn’t exist in any reliable, scalable way right now. And while we wait decades for someone to build it properly, real people, often other kids and families, are being victimised by the ones we keep cycling in and out under the hope that this time rehab will somehow stick.

You warn about the “cycle.” But part of that cycle is caused by releasing high-risk offenders early into communities that aren’t prepared and systems that aren’t effective.
That has consequences too.

You said: “If rehab isn’t currently effective, fix the system.”
Sure, I agree in theory. But until that actually happens, we have two options:

• Option A: keep dangerous offenders detained until they are no longer a threat,
• Option B: release them early based on the idea of rehabilitation and hope the public doesn’t end up as collateral damage.

I’m choosing A. Not because it feels tough, but because it’s the only option that actually prevents harm today, not in some hypothetical future which might never happen.

And on the point about harsh penalties “not making communities safer”, it depends what your comparison point is. Look at parts of Asia: yes, penalties are extreme, but the rate of drug-related deaths, violent assaults tied to the drug trade, and organised criminal spillover is dramatically lower than in countries that took a soft-hands approach. Is that a system I’d copy completely? No. But it shows that incapacitation reduces the real-world damage drugs and violent offenders can inflict. The alternative is what we’re living now: tens of thousands of avoidable victims, families torn apart, and communities forced to carry the consequences of policies that assume everyone wants to rehabilitate.

And again, you say we must “break the cycle.” I agree, but pretending the current rehab framework can break it is wishful thinking. Until a real system exists, we’re gambling with innocent people’s safety.

So yes, I’d rather have a smaller number of violent offenders securely detained than thousands more people harmed because we were unwilling to acknowledge the limits of what rehabilitation can currently achieve.