There are many people serving extremely long sentences due to things like 3 strike laws and mandatory minimums. Unfortunately it comes down to perverse incentives. It’s a lot easier to get elected by being “tough on crime” rather than practicing empathy and developing systems to provide the tools and skills necessary to help people become productive members of society.

Once a person enters the cycle it’s very difficult to exit it. You grow up in a bad situation, get busted for a crime, serve time and exit, lacking the skills to be successful. You’re labeled as a criminal and surrounded by trip wires ready to send you back. Society then uses the fact that you got sent back as proof of why we need tougher sentencing, lobbied on by private prisons who make more money the more people who are locked up. The average person doesn’t stand a chance against that.

I used to believe in harsh sentencing and that people got what they deserved because they violated the law but the more I really learned about the justice system the more I realized it’s not only harming those caught up in it but helping to push society in a direction of even less empathy and human compassion.

I’m not saying we should do away with criminal punishment but I think we should reconsider whether the system and the incentives surrounding the status quo are how we want to treat members of our society and whether this is the legacy we want to leave.