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You've overlooked the "incarceration increasing crime" factors:

> "Incarceration is not only "an expensive way to achieve less public safety," but it may actually increase crime by breaking down the social and family bonds that guide individuals away from crime, removing adults who would otherwise nurture children, depriving communities of income, reducing future income potential, and engendering a deep resentment toward the legal system."




Imprisonment doesn't always rehabilitate and is perhaps linked to not properly weighting the reactions of others and long-term consequences that are in response to one's own actions. I wonder what the effects would be of requiring inmates to handwrite or type a 400 word essay (i.e., just over a page, written from scratch, no cut and paste, each inmate has to write their own) every day responding to the stimulus of "What did you do today to improve your life and the lives of those around you?". Any response is sufficient, even if it is off topic or similar to prior responses. I'd be curious to learn if the inmates would begin to more properly weight others' reactions and long term consequences.


Right.

Put crudely: Put someone in jail and he's not going to be around to rob anyone. But he's also not going to be around to talk sense into his kid brother.


Nor is he around his grandma for her to talk sense into him; instead he is around a bunch of career criminals.

Nor is he around his children, making a stable household for them to grow up focusing on school and building their own futures.




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