[kevingadd]

The US is perhaps a "violent society" but our crime rates have been trending down over the last few decades, while spending on prisons has not trended down accordingly. We could be spending that money on valuable social programs.

See https://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/ and https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/u-s-prison-po... for some numbers - prison populations massively spiked over the course of a couple decades, but while crime rates have come down massively prison populations have not declined nearly as much.

Based on the number of people in US jails and prisons who are awaiting trial - not even convicted of a crime - or there for minor offenses due to policies like "three strikes", it's hard to argue that massive incarceration is actually what's making us safer.