I'm not particularly surprised at the hang 'em & flog 'em sentiments given Nicola expresses them in the immediate aftermath of a deliberate act of sabotage which has nearly killed her mother and two sisters. She's somewhat authoritarian in nature by training and temperament anyway (unmoderated by experience as yet) but actually primitive revenge impulses are a perfectly reasonable immediate response to a deliberate and violent attack on one's family. I don't think the system ought to support them, but I do think the system ought to do a damn sight more to acknowledge their existence and validity as emotions (quite apart from the fact that when it doesn't, institutions like the tabloids step in to take up the slack for their own murky motives. I think a lot might be done with looking at The Franchise Affair from the point of view that, actually, there is a justice gap when a 15 year old can be sexually exploited, beaten black and blue and end up having to make her own way home and everyone including the narrative voice puts it down to her bad blood.)

ETA - I'm dashing out swimming so the above is a bit dense with a lot of conflicting ideas jammed one on top of another but I suppose what I'm coming down to is that it is possible and desirable to have a legal system which abhors corporal and capital punishment and focuses on rehabilitation, while still acknowledging that victims have a perfectly reasonable psychological need to have their anger at being made victims recognised, and that Ann's "just boys" is dangerously inadequate (particularly when institutionalised) in dealing with that aspect of crime in society.