And the worst part is that yes, sex offenders and pedophiles are heinous criminals, but something feels off to me.
I hope I am just being overly paranoid, but what happens when the data sets are replaced with a different group of people after the mob is already primed for violence.
What happens when a data set is "accidentally wrong" and people in the wrong neighborhood are terrorized for no reason?
@Hobyrim See, that's why stringent legal processes are ESPECIALLY essential for severe & irreversible punishments like the death penalty.
If you require a high enough standard of evidence to preclude any possibility of a mistake for such punishments, the ethical problem with them goes away.
Sure, that means only a very tiny minority of cases that might otherwise qualify for severe/irreversible punishment will see it meted out, but those few cases will still stand out as stark examples.