Originally Posted by cmac2012

I first got wind of the idea in a column by Jon Carroll, he's an SF Chron regular. He had a book that listed many of the inhabitable but uninhabited islands in the world. It would be a lot more humane in many ways than what we're doing now.

I think maybe it's ultimately not doable. Well, maybe for the life with no parole crowd, but even with that limited group, the numbers might be so large that it would be hard to find enough islands that could be used that wouldn't prompt a humongous outpouring of objection by all sorts of concerned parties.

And if a family of yachters did land on it, if they missed the off limits status, oh my ghod, there would be the hostage standoff from hell. The state dept. of whatever country they were from would be under enormous pressure.

It's nice to think about anyway, I mean, not the hostage deal, but a way to get these guys away from civilized society -- including guards.