I haven't read the article. But wanted to add to what you said. While you mention Christianity (specifically catholicism) and its influence on modern American

I haven't read the article. But wanted to add to what you said. While you mention Christianity (specifically catholicism) and its influence on modern American criminal / prison system, I personally believe that the American criminal system is more influenced by the Islamic Sharia system when it comes to punishment. Under the Islamic Sharia system, the laws are very harsh - you steal and your hand is cut off, you rape someone and you are stoned to death, you commit adultery and you are publicly lashed and so on. But the Sharia also allows the victim (or their relatives) to forgive the perpetrator (with or without some compensation, usually money) in the spirit of Islam. The American criminal legal system is modelled similarly - the punishments for most crimes are absurd - for e.g. US courts sometimes award absurd punishments of 200 years of jail time. Like the Sharia system, once punishments is awarded and carried out the system ensures you end up broken (in spirit, if not physically). Where as in a Sharia system the victim decides on being compassionate or a "fair" compensation in lieu of a lesser punishment, in the US system this power is held with the government. And this is used as a bargaining chip to make "deals" with the accused (note that I don't say the guilty, as sometimes even the innocent make such deals afraid of the harsher punishment if they were to lose the trial). (From what I have read, some of the founding fathers of the US were admirers of the Islamic empire and their political and legal system influenced by Islam).