The US system is too soft? Wow, that's not something I hear very often. The US has one of the most regressive, punitive, non-effective prison systems in the western world.
Exactly it’s too soft and allows for inmates to be harassed and assaulted by other inmates, creating prison gangs and things like that. So it hardens the criminals and creates even more problems.. I would prefer the system like the one in Japan, which again is not perfect at all but much better than US system though it’s criticized to be very harsh but has great results and Japan has amongst if not even the lowest crime rate in the world