At the Philosopher’s Beard, an essay about the penal system thinks very far outside the box, suggesting less incarceration and more flogging and execution. A hard sell, to be sure. But the piece has a good passage about criminal nature, which follows:

“Even if someone has committed a serious crime and deserves to be punished severely, that does not necessarily mean that they present a danger we need to be protected from. Corporate fraudsters for example can be made safe relatively easily by removing their rights to manage companies. Likewise even those who commit very serious violent crimes may not be particularly dangerous; for example women who kill abusive husbands do not go around killing other people. Quite often, people are sentenced to prison for the worst thing they have ever done, and not for being dangerous. Thus, little to no security benefits are achieved from their stay in prison. Of course there are people whose character can be said to be criminal, and who do present a risk to society for as long as they are free, but these are a small minority of those who are now sent to prison. The way we use prison now assumes that all convicts are criminal characters, which is not only false, but a very inefficient way of trying to achieve security.” (Thanks Browser.)