[maxxxxx]

After living in the US since 2000 I believe that a majority of the US population believes in the punishment aspect of prison and thinks it's OK to make prison life as miserable as possible. There is not much thought about rehabilitation and I have heard lines like "Why do we have to pay for job training for them if I have to pay for college?" even from very liberal people. Punishing people as hard as possible is deeply entrenched in the american psyche.

[cyphar]

> I have heard lines like "Why do we have to pay for job training for them if I have to pay for college?" even from very liberal people.

I would argue most "very liberal people" would argue that both should be free. Granted, I'm not in the US, but free college is quite favourable nation-wide in the US in polls over the past few years -- let alone among progressive circles.

[Shorel]

I think the right answer is: "you should not need to pay for college"

[jstarfish]

> I have heard lines like "Why do we have to pay for job training for them if I have to pay for college?"

The answer to this is always, "...to keep his knife away from your throat."

[mynameishere]

You know, there are legitimate answers to that strawmanish question. Why would you say something ridiculous like that, which just begs the further response, "Well, then we better not release such monsters at all..."

[zeveb]

Careful — increasing the number of capital crimes, and actually executing criminals, would do that as well, as would imposing more life sentences.

[malaya_zemlya]

increasing the number of capital crimes might actually to increase the number of murders. If you are committing a capital crime, you have a strong incentive to get rid of the witnesses.

[anbop]

I’ve heard very few people arguing to expand the list of capital crimes. After all, California hasn’t even executed more than 700 people on death row, let alone all the other first degree murderers who could be executed without any expansion in the list of capital crimes.