Okay, I’m not a believer of free will, and so I’m not in favor of a justice system that’s used to punish rather than rehabilitate.
However, given the current system, it seems odd to me that they give credit (if we can call it that) for pretrial detention based on detaining the person attempting to flee. It recalls Jean Valjean, who got a tremendous amount of extra time in prison for his attempt to escape.
On the other hand, I believe that Germany has a legal policy to not consider attempting to escape from prison a crime, because wanting freedom is a very natural state of mind and shouldn’t be criminalized. I am, not surprisingly, more in favor of Germany’s philosophy on this.
But its examples like this that make me appreciate Robert Sapolsky’s position that it’s really challenging sometimes to have to keep your scientifically derived ethical position in mind when faced with a crime that really gets to you.