> some people are past the point of rehabilitation and should be in prison.
If we made a serious effort of rehabilitation in the US penal system, then this might be fair. We don't. Prisoners, especially those who commit the crimes in their youth, are screwed under our current system. The younger criminals, like their non-criminal youth counterparts, just don't know or don't appreciate the options available to them regarding education and learning trade skills. We put them into an environment with other people we've given up on and somehow expect that when they get out a year or a decade later they'll be ready to reintegrate into society. They didn't have the skill set going in, and they won't have it coming out. Many of them will continue to live on the fringes of our society, perhaps making a meager living as unskilled laborers. Others will fall into a crowd that keeps them involved in crime or other "antisocial", or however you want to describe it, behavior.
If we made a serious effort of rehabilitation in the US penal system, then this might be fair. We don't. Prisoners, especially those who commit the crimes in their youth, are screwed under our current system. The younger criminals, like their non-criminal youth counterparts, just don't know or don't appreciate the options available to them regarding education and learning trade skills. We put them into an environment with other people we've given up on and somehow expect that when they get out a year or a decade later they'll be ready to reintegrate into society. They didn't have the skill set going in, and they won't have it coming out. Many of them will continue to live on the fringes of our society, perhaps making a meager living as unskilled laborers. Others will fall into a crowd that keeps them involved in crime or other "antisocial", or however you want to describe it, behavior.