When it's finally and fully told, the story of what some in the media are calling "The Horror in Hammond" will be a scandal as well.

David Maust, the suspect in the case involving the bodies of three teenage boys found buried in a basement, had no business being free given his criminal history. And the fact that he was is an outrage that should prompt a thorough round of soul searching about the priorities and practices of our criminal and military justice systems.

In 1974, when Maust was a 20-year-old U.S. Army private in Germany, he killed a 13-year-old boy.

Maust's own writings, which will be the subject of an extensive report in Sunday's Tribune, say that he first beat up the boy, "Jimmy," when he awoke one night to find that he was naked and Jimmy, also naked, was lying on top of him.

Several days later, then, Maust encountered Jimmy again, according to his own words. He took him into a wooded area, tied him to a tree and began striking him with a 5-foot board.

When he realized Jimmy was dead, he attempted to hide the body.

The military reportedly convicted Maust of manslaughter for this wholly savage and utterly depraved act, and he served more than 3 years in a federal prison.

Manslaughter? Three years? Is this all the value that the military placed on the life of a teenager?

And is 17 1/2 years all the value that our criminal justice system placed on the life of a teen?

That was the net effective sentence Maust received for stabbing to death 15-year-old Donald Jones in a quarry near Elgin in 1981. He was released in 1999.

As a society it seems we are so consumed with the idea of punishing offenders--including ever more youthful "adults" and those who find themselves somehow or another caught up in the web of illegal drugs--that we've lost focus on one of the key reasons we have prison system: incapacitation.

We lock up, or we should lock up, dangerous people for our own safety. And every reform and every dollar we can direct toward identifying sociopathic predators who simply can't be trusted to walk among us will pay major safety dividends.

The discovery of the bodies of James Raganyi, 16, Michael Dennis, 13, and Nick James, 19, in Hammond comes hard on the heels of the apparent abduction and murder of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, a story that seems to prove the same point.

The suspect in that case, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 50, has prior convictions for rape, attempted kidnapping and aggravated assault, and was such a manifest threat to others that his own sister reportedly pleaded with police to keep tabs on him.

One of the problems with one-size-fits-all and mandatory sentencing is that it looks too much at the crime and not enough at the criminal. So hapless, nitwit accomplices to stick-ups gone wrong, septuagenarians who committed murder in their teens and others who are at worst a minor threat stay locked up while human monsters cycle through the system.

It's dumb and it's deadly.

But it's not an argument for the death penalty. Studies show that maintaining a capital justice system--which, in terms of public safety, offers no statistical advantage over a system that allows for sentences of life without parole--costs millions of dollars per execution above the cost of life imprisonment.

Let's spend that money on prison cells, psychiatrists and whatever else we need to keep us and our children safe from the David Mausts and Alfonso Rodriguezes of the world.

No family should again have to hear the excuses that Raganys, the Dennises, the Jameses and the Sjodins are hearing this week.

- Satirist Bob Hirschfeld recently called for linguistic "syn-tax" to be levied on certain trite and overused words and phrases in journalism, including "this is not your father's ... " "to be sure," "memo to:" and "perfect storm."

I proposed adding "you see," and contributors to the online message board at my Web log demanded syn-taxes on, among other usages, "It's not just for kids anymore," "It is what it is." "the mother of all (anything)," "at the end of the day," "(scandal) --gate" "bad paper," "the likes of," "fast forward to," and "tongue firmly planted in cheek."

Post your syn-tax suggestions at chicagotribune.com/notebook.