Sure. But with regards to people throwing around statistics of who is likely to re-offend etc I'm pointing out that when it got started it wasn't only for viole

Sure. But with regards to people throwing around statistics of who is likely to re-offend etc I'm pointing out that when it got started it wasn't only for violent crime and given people got 25 years there ought to be two kinds of prisoners represented in that population. Those in for violent crime and those in for non-violent crime. So it's not so black and white. Only that after a while people figured out it was a terrible idea for non-violent crime which I'm assuming no one disagrees with. For violent crime I don't have a very informed opinion. I'd need a few hundred hours research to get better resolution models than I currently have in my head. Suffice to say jurisprudence is a rather thorny problem with no nice answer as you only have so many levers you can push/pull to change the economics and it's well established that for a certain segment of the population even the pain of death isn't enough to deter them, so they are better off just off the street. Penal theory is such a conundrum in that regard. It's like oh, there are people for which nothing works. Well can we just destroy them? The public says no. Right. So... Back in they go with the public? Well, no the public doesn't want that either. Ok, so we'll just hold on to them for a really long time? Yes, but the public is not happy about paying for that. Ok, but hey wouldn't it be better if violent people spent less time with other violent people than more time? It would but where else can we put them? So, we just leave them here in the same cage together for a really long time? I guess so? That seems just like a really, shitty, fucked situation for which there is no good answer. Hmm... seems that way. At least thats my analysis. It's an interesting topic. More study required.