They are terrorists, rapists, and thieves: why would I ever want them to be my neighbors?

For the same reason rehabilitation is the only sensible reason to even maintain a prison system in the first place: People can change.

This response is just for the “ever” part though. And that framing. I think there are things other than the mentioned thieving, raping and terrorism, perfectly valid as a reason to reject a neighbor, that has no real path toward rehabilitation. I like to think anyone deserves a second chance, no matter the crime, but that only really works with crime as defined today. If someone’s a deplorable asshole, and as such, never actually goes through rehabilitation because it’s not a crime, I think that’s a valid reason to never want them as a neighbor.

So there’s a distinction. Those going through rehabilitation are redeemable in my eyes, always, until proven otherwise by wasting the chances they get.

Those never rehabilitating, i.e doing shit that’s not illegal by today’s standards (or at least never put into the rehabilitation pipeline for it), aren’t.

And I think that is the reason you don’t want them as neighbors. Not that they’ve done crimes, that is redeemable, if you believe in the system. If not, why waste resources with prisons? What’s the point if the thinking is they’ll always just be bad and do hurtful things?

No, you don’t want them because they are fucking shitty people and never suffer the consequences for it, i.e never rehabilitate.