Rehabilitation is a core part of the system in many European countries and some of them had to close prisons due to the lack of demand (e.g. Netherlands). You'r

Rehabilitation is a core part of the system in many European countries and some of them had to close prisons due to the lack of demand (e.g. Netherlands). You're right, some people only respond to punishment and defraud people for the fun of it. But that's the minority. America's outsized prison population is mostly drug related (either selling/possessing drugs, crimes while being high or committing crimes to be able to buy drugs). I don't say prisons are useless but you could probably cut prison population by 70%+ and have a safer society as a result. And a psychologist isn't expensive compared to a 1 year prison sentence.