...snip...
In the UK, there are indeterminate sentences. In the US, there is "3 strikes and you are out." Both address the issue of people who are never going to stop harming others. I am not comfortable with either idea but I have met someone who does spent his life either in jail or terrorising people and I accept that society needs protection.
You think that I need protection, or do you think that you need protection?
There are specific cases where you do need protection. Same for me. There are mad and bad guys who do work as groups and they need to be stopped.
But that statement doesn't hold up to scrutiny. There might very well be mad and bad guys who work as groups who hold ill will towards myself, but how is that your responsibility? And if you are responsible for my protection, to what extent are you responsible? These aren't just bs questions that I'm making up as I go, they are intended to guide you to think along a pattern.
I snipped your question about trying to making general rules. We protect kids from buggery but not from a smacked ass. Laws tend to be specific.
Actually, quite the reverse is true. Laws tend to be written as generalities, and the details are finalized by judicial precedent. And there are plenty of such laws that have been interpreted to the very end that you claim doesn't occur, namely that we don't protect kids from a smacked ass.