The voice of the book is such that it didn't actually occur to me before that Luke had already had quite a lot of punishment heaped upon him before his fellow freaks decided to visit his crimes upon him. They started as a bunch of squabbling super brains, grew up that way, and only now are toying with the idea of growing out of it. This is the main undercurrent of the story, and clearly how they've related to each other all their lives, right or wrong.
Their decision to put Luke through this is a pretty harsh approach to criminal reform, but the alternative is to give him a selective lobotomy. This is how he's wired. You can't just install a completely new mental matrix. It will have to grow from this point forward, with this event existing to slam the door as hard as possible on his past behavior.
It is also entirely your fault, Warren, that I'm dragging out all these old QUINCY episodes.