Lifespans naturally increase with technology, so people in an advanced society become more and more cautious with regard to survival. A greater value is placed on life partially because it involves a much greater societal investment. This sentiment has effects on both the victim and perpetrator side of criminal justice. On the one hand, murder and other bodily offenses would be considered more heinous. Sentences would be more severe for such uncivilized behavior. On the other hand, the death penalty would become more and more repulsive over time. Just as 20th century society sees the public hangings of the past as brutal and barbaric, future societies will see 20th century death penalty as barbaric and unacceptable. So what do you do when people demand severe punishments, but the ultimate penalty is not allowed?
Advances in psychology put a greater emphasis on rehabilitation. But rehabilitation costs a lot of money. Taxpayers want the problem solved, but they don't want to pay $150K per year for a well-trained psychiatrist to treat every heroin addict who mugs his way into the criminal justice system. The $50K per year to feed and house the delinquent is bad enough and more secure prisons just cost even more money. So what can a government do?
As Earth's population density increases into the 21st century, crime will increase. But even worse than the increase in crime rate is the public's perception of the crime problem. Even though that public demands that criminals be treated humanely, they also demand stronger punishment. So even while law forces are struggling to deal with greater crime rates, the population becomes more demanding of solutions to crime problems.
So governments try to find cheaper ways of imprisonment. In 1998, Wisconsin exports criminals to Texas prisons since it's cheaper to pay Texas than to build new prisons here. Family of the convicted people complain that their loved ones are being unfairly punished by being sent so far away. But the good of society as a whole seems to be overriding the good of the few. A more extreme example is Britain of 200 years ago.
In the late 1700's, the London prisons were overcrowded pits of death and disease. The government commissioned private prisons where the wardens actually charged the prisoners a fee for food and lodging. For years, they had been able to encourage trouble-makers to emigrate to America, but the former colony was closed. Rehabilitation was not a concept that people had heard of: the criminals committed crimes because they were part of the lower, criminal class and that was that. So, starting in the 1787, Britain sent criminals to Australia for 7 or 14 year sentences. Of course, most never came back. The crimes were as bad as murder and rape, but as simple as theft of food. The first trips took 250 days and up to 50% of the exiled perished en route. Later, the shipments became faster, safer and more routine as private companies took over the work for 17 pounds per person (about $1500 by 1990 standards). By the time the export policy was rescinded in 1850, 175,000 people (25,000 of them women) were sent to the penal colony.
In the 21st century, the solution to the crime problem began as it did in 18th century England. At first, in the 2060's to 2080's the disenfranchised and undesirables were encouraged to seek a new life in the colonies. In the late 2060's, some of the United States started offering early release to prisoners in exchange for work on a colony world. Many criminals with nothing to lose took this offer and became some of the famous upstanding names in the history of many colonies. Others found this to be an opportunity to go and exploit a new population, setting themselves up as leaders of new crime circles.
After the Mars War in 2086, there was a period of unrest and government change on Earth. During this period, some governments quietly began involuntary emigration for criminals and trouble-makers. Many dangerous and unwanted members of Earth's bloated population were shipped off. The economics of this process were similar to that of England in the 1790's: the price of the ship itself was huge and supplies for the voyage were not cheap either, but once the prisoners left port, they didn't cost a cent. The colonies were (almost completely) self supporting, so the prisoners had to work to survive in their new homes. And once the colonies started asking for more labor and when cargo space on the ships could be leased, the economics became even more tipped in favor of exportation instead of confinement at home.
Origin World became the most popular destination to send criminals. Before the mass exportation, Origin wasn't seen as a very valuable world, compared to the other colonies. The need for manual labor under difficult conditions on a poor world was too great. So, involuntary criminal emigrants were perfect to tame that planet. In the first 10 years, 95% of the exported criminals went to Origin and the population of that world grew rapidly. The planned management of prisoners on that planet was always a little vague to people back on Earth, but the problem was being solved, so most just looked the other way.
The ship carrying the PCs from Earth to Origin World departs in 2111.
After just over 5 years subjective time and 13.5 years Earth time, the
PCs arrive in the Origin system in 2124.