> We as a society accepting the high costs of long term incarceration is an answer. But that logic, anything society accepts is an answer. You could just as ea

> We as a society accepting the high costs of long term incarceration is an answer. But that logic, anything society accepts is an answer. You could just as easily say that society accepting high crime rates is an answer. You're right that policies often reflect public opinion, but when we're debating policy ideally the conversation would go deeper than that. Public discussions about policy in the open, on forums, etc, is a big part of how public opinion gets formed, and those discussions should probably dig into underlying goals and identify the costs and benefits of different approaches beyond just checking what the current majority preference is. Things can get a little circular when being popular is the justification for why something is popular.