[archhn]

That high cost is bureaucratic bloat which ultimately gets funneled into the pockets of the wealthy and powerful who make decisions against the wellbeing of the poor, contributing to the perrenial cycle of incarceration.

Some people definitely deserve to be forced to pay for what they've done. But if a man is born into a decaying and violent environment, and he commits crimes, keeping with the norm of his peers, why should all the guilt be put upon him? I say state corruption, or mismanagement, is guilty for much crime.

It's a complicated system. The label "criminal" tends to be a thought-terminating classification that prevents further analysis and assessment of what causes criminality.