As I said elsewhere, practicable solutions seem to be somewhere between mercy and severity. That doesn't mean Mitch has no responsibility to restitution. It means if we refuse to offer those who go down the wrong path, regardless of how long, a way back to the relative nirvana of reintegration with society, we leave them no viable options but to keep chasing their own individual hell or our collective hell.

Mitch is brilliant at negotiating policy. We could and very well should seek him to negotiating policies for the good of the greater whole. If he declines, response can be appropriately measured in graduating degrees of severity - but always with an eye toward rehabilitation and reintegration.

Tl;Dr better to bring s stay back to the flock than left the stray to the temptations of the wolves, to our demise along with their own.