I assume you’re not being intentionally dishonest, but have instead been taken in by propaganda, so allow me to remind you that the primary purpose and effect of incarceration is preventing reoffending. Fortunately a tiny minority commits the vast majority of violent crimes[1], so considerable reduction can be achieved by containing those criminals’ ability to commit crimes.
Not sure which USA you're living in but what you're saying does not match reality. I've had a lot of friends and family in and out of jail and it's hell, at least in the US.
Hell is living in a place where you have a 1 in 70 chance of being a victim of a violent crime per year, and being gaslit by extremely co-dependent people into having more empathy for narcissist sociopaths than their traumatized innocent victims.
If people don't want to do serious jail time they shouldn't do serious crimes, the contract couldn't possibly be more simple. The purpose of incarceration isn't to coddle murderers, it's great if they change their life but ultimately it's to extract murderers from society so decent people can live peaceful and successful lives and anything else beyond that is ancillary.
And how is that strategy working out? Because lots and lots of countries have more humane justice systems and are safer. But I guess throwing more people in jail than the Soviet Union had in gulags can’t fail, only we can fail at throwing more people in jail.
It would be nice if society could develop some kind of technique to use in these cases of "we live in different realities". It sucks to have to write a guy off just because he lives in a different filter bubble than you do, yet I currently don't see any other option. And it seems like an issue that's growing in size.
Especially when the other guy “lives in a reality” where he thinks violently victimizing you is fine. It’s almost as if we need some way to separate from such people.
> The purpose of incarceration isn't to coddle murderers,
Unfortunatly in the real world your criminal justice ethics will have to accommodate crimes that are not murder, so you might need to think about some prisoners eventually getting released, who might then go on and do more criming.
> it's great if they change their life but ultimately it's to extract murderers from society
In that case, there is no need to make prisons particularly cruel. Cost can be debated, but surely as a society, we can put a value on humaneness. Even if not, if say I, a billionaire, wanted prisoners eat caviar every night and am willing to fund it, surely this should be allowed.
