In the sentence: society owed it to the criminal to put into operation a punishment equal

In the sentence: "society owed it to the criminal to put into operation a punishment equal to the crime he had committed" the underlined part can be interpreted as: society

A．was in debt to the criminal and must put him into operation as a punishment

B．should consider punishment as something it must do so that the criminal can get paid back for his crime

C．owed the criminal equality and must first show it in action

D．owed an operation of equal crime to the criminal