Sounds good for MRP! You shouldn't be executing antagonists when they have only just started their round and got caught out early. Deconversion as a priority, then permabrig, then possibly execution. This is where an issue arises, however. Some antagonist objectives are long-term harmful (because every antag snowballs into Super Saiyan nowadays but code issue so I digress) but are short-term not harmful. What this results in are antagonists running around doing every single non-harmful objective possible, not caring if people see them, because they know security may not be allowed to escalate any meaningful punishment off of their snowballing, and nobody will ever retaliate at risk of being banned for "validhunting"6. Deal with the bad guys in proportion to their crime(s).
Restricted antagonists (or crewmembers) should be handled in proportion to their committed crimes. The decision to execute an antagonist should have good in-character reasoning based on their crimes and the state of the shift. Punishments against antagonists that repeatedly commit minor crimes may be escalated. Only antagonists that have committed the most severe crimes may be met with immediate execution.
Security members are expected to consider the full range of punishment options available when dealing with antags. This includes (but is not always limited to) pacification, implants, timed brig sentences, gulag sentences, permabrig, forced borging and execution. Forced borging is considered equivalent to execution in punishment severity.
So here's the debate: I think the crew as a whole, but especially security, should be allowed to act with more impunity regarding open antagonists doing this "Friendly-Not-Friendly" sort of thing. Maybe an addition to the rules? I feel like this needs a discussion from other players who have noticed the same issues, since I don't explicitly have an answer to this conundrum.