Well, the idea that their debt to society has been paid is probably too formal for the real world. Real society is very vindictive, and never really lets any su

Well, the idea that their debt to society has been paid is probably too formal for the real world. Real society is very vindictive, and never really lets any such debt be paid off. These are primitive times. If someone commits a crime we should be figuring out why they did it and how we can prevent it from happening again. We shouldn't just be putting people away with moral debts. Our society's vindictive nature on these matters is exactly why they don't forgive and forget. They can't forget, because they never cured the 'root cause' of the crime, and thus must constantly live in fear of it recurring.