Depending on the jurisdiction, though, the judge may be an elected official that doesn't want to look "soft on crime" for re-election or even may be receiving a

Depending on the jurisdiction, though, the judge may be an elected official that doesn't want to look "soft on crime" for re-election or even may be receiving a big chunk of campaign donations from private prison organizations. It's an interesting open question whether judges should be elected or not (though I lean toward no due to the lack of visibility of their actions)... but what isn't up for debate is how corrupt the US election system is - as long as campaign finance is broken we can't expect the judiciary to fix things for us.