[zamalek]

I say this knowing full-well that I might seek retribution if something awful were to ever happen to me or my loved ones, but:

> I think that retribution, which is of course the principal component of justice, is a key part of prisons.

No amount of retribution will ever be enough. The concept of making things right is a delusion that parents infect their children with.

However, the most effective way to inflict retribution is to teach an individual the meaning of their actions and have them live with the guilt of those actions. Another word for that is rehabilitation.

American prisons are based on childish like-for-like retribution (your limited someone's rights, you get your rights limited). It didn't work when I was 8, so why would it work for an adult? All that we achieve is sending people to crime college, where fellow inmates further numb moral fiber and empathy, then release graduated criminals back into the wild. That's certainly one way to make sure that there is always demand for retribution.