I find myself stuck on a single data point from this article, the one that reports 16 people lost their lives due to the release of just 248 incarcerated kids. Now my rational mind is able to grasp that this is only 6.5% of the group they were tracking, but I can't help but feel like we owe those 16 people a greater standard of care than to release these deeply disturbed individuals. The recidivism rate for that same group was 97%...so a virtual certainty. They don't break that down into violent crimes vs property crimes, but seat of the pants wisdom suggests that even if it is property crime initially, that it is similarly likely to progress to more sinister deeds later on. If that's not enough to justify a life sentence in perhaps a minimum security facility, I don't know what is.
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