A few thoughts on this subject. I use the following definitions:

Ethics - a person's ability to apply reason to their actions without the group needing to intervene.
Morals - the group's list of good and bad actions and - "justice' is the the pressure put on the individuals by the group to follow the list.

When a person fails to apply ethics, then the group will often move in and punish. I see a problem with this too. There are some for which the threat of punishment is enough to keep them on the straight and narrow. However, there are some that feel that their survival is in such danger that they will never succumb to a group moral for to them everyone is an enemy. If we take your example of a pedophile, a potential or one who has acted on his bad intentions - (I totally agree with you that this is horrible action) what do we as a society ultimately want? I think it's that this person doesn't commit these actions. For a potential pedophile who never acts on the intentions - the threat in Indonesia of 15 years of prison has been enough enough to thwart him or her. But how about the one whose in such bad shape that they constantly striving overtly or covertly against everyone? Who will not stop their evil actions despite all moral threats? I agree with you here that there is a problem with the increasing punishment theme which ultimately results in capital punishment whether as painlessly as possible or burning at the stake-type punishments. I see that at that point the society justifies its own murder of this person. I don't think a society can ever be justified in torturing or murdering someone even for such a heinous action as pedophilia. The society's only function must be to prevent a person from continuing their immoral actions. When it descends into capital punishment it starts to operate on some very low intentions. I'm going to seem to contradict myself here, but when there is widespread immoral behavior, I'm not averse to putting some heads on pikes(literally). To put so much pressure on those committing crimes that they knock it off enough for standard justice to start being effective again.

Thanks for talking about things like this - It needs more discussion by people instead of people just assuming that a centralized government has it all figured out. Living on the American continent - I'm often sickened how our decentralized society has descended into a centralized war machine. I am a peaceful person but in another seeming contradiction - have decided I need to be well armed to preserve this for myself and my loved ones. Sigh.