Part of the issue is that the United States has 25% of the world's prison population and only 6% of Total population the world. When you are the jailingest country in the world per capita by a large margin - More than Russia, Saudi Arabia, iran - You got the question how flippantly we put people in a cage.
Judged by how effective they are right? At preventing crime and especially recidivism? We compare extremely well against our peer nations on these metrics, the ones who have much less "sane prison terms." Right?
