That sentence leaped out as me as the crucial error that plunged the article into confusion. The words "prisoners could go in on Friday, and emerge, rehabilitated, on Sunday." are a massive failure of natural language where two very different ideas get referred to by a single ambiguous phrase.

Start by recalling Daniel Dennett's warnings against thought experiments. We set them up by saying: imagine X. We make a vague and half-hearted effort to imagine X. Then we draw the conclusion that we believed in all along. We seldom put the effort into our thought experiments that would let the logic of the scenario drive us to an unexpected conclusion.

Let us try to take Dennett's warning seriously. Fred goes into prison on Friday saying "Ofcourse I glassed the fucking bitch! That cunt deserved it." He comes out on Sunday saying "Call me Frederick. Call me Frederick the Fabulous. I hereby renounce my past life. It was so hopelessly vulgar. I will never be able to live down the shame of it, but I will strive mightily, for as long as God keeps me on earth, to be a shining example of penitence and good taste."

The psycho-surgery and neural implants had done their job and Fred really is rehabilitated over the weekend. Where is the old Fred, who seldom got through a rugby match without being sent off, who lost girlfriends through spending all his money on beer, and whose dangerous, manly allure won him new ones, quickly, if not for long? Is this new Federick even straight? Why is he playing chess on Friday nights. People are shocked, disturbed, creeped-out. The state psychiatrist is adamant that it is the same person and has old school records to prove it. Rough old Fred had been the strongest chess player in his school, aged 9. The friends who don't recognise him now, didn't know him then.

The folk understanding is that the elite are erasing prisoners completely, effectively stealing their bodies to provide homes for completely new people who subscribe to elite values. The elite understanding is that criminality comes from developmental wrong turns that are being rolled back and that rehabilitation involves rolling back the wrong turns and fasted forwarding the criminal to become the person be should have become all along.

Whoops! I've think I've over done taking the thought experiment seriously. In Crowe's brave new world people are indeed upset if prisoners go in on Friday, and emerge, rehabilitated, on Sunday, but for the opposite reason. In PhilGoetz's version they are upset because there is no punishment. In Crowe's version rehabilitation is a kind of death penalty, but with extra nastiness, and way too harsh.

OK, that is half my story. There is a plain, flat, literal meaning to "prisoners could go in on Friday, and emerge, rehabilitated, on Sunday." as vividly imagined above. The idea that people would be unhappy with the lack of punishment strikes me as implausible speculation.

The other half of my story concerns the cynical, ironic meaning of "prisoners could go in on Friday, and emerge, rehabilitated, on Sunday.". Politicians want to save money so they cut jail terms. They head off criticisms that crime will rise by denying that it is a cost saving measure. They are ring fencing the money they save on shorter jail terms and spending it on new, scientific rehabilitation. Twice the reform, in half the time. It is mostly lies. The new therapies don't work. They are only rolled out in two showcase prisons, with hand picked prisoners who have already reformed. The savings are mostly spent bailing out the banking system. Meanwhile, other politicians are rather pleased that crime is rising. That means they can persuade the public that more money must be spent on police and criminal justice and law enforcement. And that means that those politicians have a free hand to pass laws against vice and eliminate civil liberties and generally become the stern paternalistic father to all their children, err, adult citizens.

Meanwhile, the ordinary bloke, trying to get by in a rough part of town, where his flat gets burgled and his car gets stolen, knows exactly what is going on because he has seen it all before. Fred goes into prison on Friday, emerges rehabilitated on Sunday, burgles a flat on Monday and steals a car on Tuesday.

Of course people would be upset if prisoners could go in on Friday, and emerge, rehabilitated, on Sunday, because the cynical and ironic meaning is the only meaning they have for those words.