I believe that the answer has to be yes, at least in terms of creating rules, regulations, ordinances, and laws that spell out what is considered potentially harmful behavior against members of a society.
This must be done for two reasons: first, to deter morally irresponsible people from harmful behavior; second, to provide a consistent system for defining (by the use of lex majoris partis or majority rule through our elected representatives) a particular form of behavior as harmful to society or its members. To be arbitrary in deciding if an action is harmful-whether to one human or a group of humans-is harmful to the ones who are harmed without recourse against those who have harmed them, as well as those people who are punished for a given crime while others are not. However, arbitrary laws to satisfy some individual or group within a society's concept of "proper thought or action" are by their very nature harmful, and must be scrupulously avoided.
I also believe that the answer is yes with regard to placing individuals who have caused harm to society and its individual members in a place-such as prison-where they are prevented from causing any further harm, at least until they are rehabilitated and some form of restitution in terms of time and or money has been made. I believe it is in the best interests of a society to attempt to rehabilitate its prisoners, in order to permit them to rejoin society as useful members, rather than return to their former destructive ways.
For that small percentage of criminals who cannot be rehabilitated, e.g., serial offenders (killers, arsonists, and rapists), pedophiles, etc., I am not certain of any solution (as I do not believe in capital punishment, in part because it is arbitrary) but a more humane version of Alcatraz, Devil's Island, or an equivalent. This small percentage are too dangerous to permit any chance of either release or escape back into civilized society.
Can this proactive stance be expanded even further?
For example, are we justified as a society in demanding individuals help pay for civil improvements-e.g., a dam-and their upkeep, which benefit their community in general, but may not directly, benefit that particular individual?
This is where we get into the more nebulous area of defining public good as actively taking steps to prevent harm to the public, and provide for its collective needs.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. For example, if we as a society are going to place individuals into some sort of prison to prevent them from causing further harm to the public, we will have to pay for it.
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