Should we change the constitution to permit the exile of criminals?

Exile them to where?

@Dutchess_lll To a future Mars colony like the British did to criminals to Australia.

Australia

Not sure the receiving countries would be too thrilled.

Why?

@josie Instead of killing them. Or to put people where they would flourish instead of locking them up for thousands of dollars per year.

Yeah that’s it. Take the million or so folks we have locked up in jails and ship them to Mars. It would be cheaper to hand them 10 million dollars apiece and turn them loose.

@stanleybmanly The price would go down in time. The trick is finding the sweet spot; before it gets too cheap. Besides we send people to Guantanamo. It would be a little stretch to send people to the Moon or Mars colony.
@cookieman We can pay countries a holding fee. Like toxic waste disposal or storage.

Sounds like you’re looking for another prison, like Gitmo, to put them in, just further away. Kind of ‘out of sight out of mind’.

@Jaxk But they would be free to live a life free of any rules. The conditions will be harsh at first but the new citizens can be the first colonists and they can taraform the new planets and make that place bear fruit. Of course it would be an option for those who would take the offer.

England used to deport their criminals to America and those were the seeds of the Republican party. ;)

Assuming we do establish some kind of foothold of Mars (or elsewhere) it would be a tragic misuse of it to use it as society’s dumping ground rather than utilizing it for the furtherance of mankind.

@Darth_Algar Maybe it should be reversed. Criminals stay on Earth and good citizens get to go to Space.

@talljasperman

Perhaps we should actually establish some kind of sustainable outpost before we start making grandiose plans to move hundreds of millions of people there.

@Darth_Algar Ok. Then that kills the thread.

@talljasperman

It does? Your question mentioned nothing about Mars specifically.

No, I really don’t think exiling criminals is a workable idea. For starters it severs them from ever possibly being productive members of society again. From a practical standpoint there’s not really any place on the Earth that we could exile them to anyway. And the idea of exiling them somewhere in outer space isn’t going to really be possible during our lifetimes (if ever).

@talljasperman Tongue in cheek.

No, because the only places that would accept them would allow them to ‘grow and flourish’ (think pedophile, terrorist) or murder/torture them for a fee from the victims.

Although I reckon we could rent a sizable chunk of the Sahara, where overcrowding is unlikely to be an issue, and the ‘waste’ takes care of itself. Maybe even reclaim it, if enough organic matter was introduced.

@talljasperman – Sounds like ‘Escape from NY’ or ‘Escape from LA’. We’ve already got the movies, we’ll just call them Documentaries.