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Not sure exactly when this was published. I think it was in Asimov's or Analog, but not sure on that. It might have been on one of the big-round-number anniversaries of Heinlein's, because it has a Heinlein tie-in.

The basic idea was, a variety of crimes had their punishments set to transportation to the lunar penal colony. The penal colony is similar to the one described in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. As a result, many people did the calculation. Then they worked out the least serious crime that resulted in transportation. Then they went out to commit this crime, deliberately get caught, plead guilty, and get transported to the moon. Where they did their time, and then joined the colony. Thus, for the cost of being in the jail on the moon for some time, they got a trip to the moon.

The main drama of the story was a couple who pulled a stick-up of a corner drug store. They were distraught because the heist went horribly wrong, resulting in a bystander getting shot. After all, these were not hardened professional criminals, just first-timers not trying to get the money but trying to get caught.

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  • I remember reading this one. It feels like something from Asimov's in the 1980s. I add more if I can recall the details.
    – Dosco Jones
    Commented Oct 2, 2018 at 17:04
  • I think this dates from earlier than @DoscoJones's recollection, but I can't recall enough to get a proper start hunting.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Commented Oct 6, 2018 at 17:32
  • I have read a similar story, but as I misremember it the criminals were mostly elderly, and the repentant one was an arsonist. Possibly by Asimov.
    – Anton Sherwood
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 2:51
  • I remember this story - I think it's Analog; will look
    – Andrew
    Commented May 15 at 0:11
  • This thread groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.written/c/dwVu_dJSFFQ/m/… has a guy who remembers the story: I recall one where various crimes were made punishable by transportation to the new lunar colonies. And there was a rash of crimes by various people you'd never expect to commit crimes, such as fresh new engineers, young doctors, etc. One of these guys was the central point of the story, as he was inconsolable in his prison cell. See, he'd picked the minimum crime that was punishable by transportation, but had bungled it and wound up killing a bystander.
    – Andrew
    Commented May 15 at 22:22

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Prisoner's Dilemma by Jeffrey Liss, published in Analog as a "Probability Zero" piece in August 1993. I haven't found a good link to an online version of it, but I can piece together enough to confirm, I think, from Google Book search.

There's a crime wave:

I just don't understand it. More and more of our best people, our pillars of society , are turning criminal. Bankers. Lawyers. Doctors.

Then they went out to commit this crime, deliberately get caught, plead guilty

"When they are arrested, they just plead guilty. They won't answer any questions as to why. I've looked at dozens of holovids. They're like a bunch of Mona Lisas. They just stare placidly with the same damnably silly smile — as if they know something that we don't." One man - an engineer who burned down his company's warehouse one night, a month after retirement, was heard to mumble 'I hope I didn't wait too long.'

Some of the criminals are distraught due to guilt.

I remember the guy who did it was sobbing uncontrollably - a fifth grade teacher

The basic idea was, a variety of crimes had their punishments set to transportation to the lunar penal colony.

They just get hard labor - monitoring the automated lunar mines and solar power arrays

It's crazy, it's like they want to be punished

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It's not a great match, since the publication history doesn't really fit, but many of these elements fit the short story "Breathes There a Man" (1953) by Charles E. Fitch. Originally published in Rocket Stories, July 1953 it apparently only subsequently appeared in the author collection Horses' Asteroid.

Nevertheless, the story features a liveable but very socially constrained life on Earth that many people chaffed at, and an ever-present threat of exile to the Lunar Prison Colony for people found guilty of crimes. The protagonist, and the woman he is in love with, belong to an underground of people dedicated to overthrowing the powers that rule Earth, but they are apparently betrayed, caught and "exiled" to the (vastly better/more free) conditions of the Moon.

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