[dmix]

They need to invest heavily in the prisons and jails, not just let them go as a short-term compromise. Investing in proper treatment of criminals would do a lot to reduce recidivism.

All of the actual solutions are hard and expensive but that's how it is. Thoughtlessly letting career criminals go so they commit 3 more crimes before the trial for the first one isn't the more compassionate move. To the net public at least.

Same deal with closing mental institutions in the 1980s without an alternative.