The negative knee jerk reaction to things has become comical. It's to the point where schools will not allow the parents of a student that has a record to come on school campus. They don't even care what the offense was for; they only look that there's not a clean slate.
It has become much more common in the last, say, 10 years, than it ever was. It used to be an extreme last resort, now people talk about it like it’s the obvious first step. Discussed previously: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32223003>
Hacker news thread is not exactly a sociological proof. In that thread, people talk in abstract and no one reading it has any way to figure out a.) what happened in anecdotes they talk about b.) whether such situations are more frequent then in the past. Besides, hacker news is a place where imaginary past gets written about all the time.
I've noticed that the exact opposite is true - I've seen endless "one more chance" and "let's just bury the hatchet" for very bad behavior, behavior that should get someone ostracised.
People are extremely forgiving, to a fault, for those in their in-group.