Let me be clearer, Wonder. If I can, I will try.
God’s the king of this universe, not us.
We can’t even effectively deal with evil (whatever the means) if we don’t submit to the King. You in fact did identify some of the King’s possible methods. What needs to be done is also to exalt the King and not us (not Warthog, not RedNeck) in the doing. Note you said that YOU would do thus and such. I’m saying the King wants us to do thus and such. See the difference in points of view?
Go back a re-read my statement. I said "I favor..", not "I would do...". God wants us to exercise compassion to our fellow men. The approach I suggested is more compassionate than the current system, which does virtually zip to actually rehabilitate "youth" offenders and lets them literally get away with pretty much anything up to and including some forms of murder. They reach adulthood as hardened criminals, and THEN we're going to try rehabilitation???