Hard Time: Really as effective a punishment?

Exactly. We should rehabilitate people and try to solve the problems that make people become criminal in the first place instead of devising new ways to punish, torment and torture them.

 

Maybe the sim-hoosgow was so invasive that it creates enough of an impression that it stays with you enough to override awareness of space/time. Regardless of how long it takes, if it's so powerful, the toll it takes on the psyche is more profound than the passage of time. In my eyes, you would need to have heightened levels of mental conditioning to overcome the effects of such a punishment, like perhaps a Vulcan, though I doubt a Vulcan would ever end up in an Agrathi court.