It costs USD40k per year per prisoner? Wow. As I understand it's substantially more than 40k GBP per year per prisoner. If the American system is costing less

It costs USD40k per year per prisoner? Wow. As I understand it's substantially more than 40k GBP per year per prisoner. If the American system is costing less in the order of half what we're paying it must be absolutely horrendous. Which is a side point to the absurdity of whole-life mandatory sentencing. It's incredibly expensive and pure vengeance; there's no way the cost to society in cash or emotional harm terms is minimised by spending MILLIONS of dollars depriving these people of their liberty for decades. So why does the Land Of The Free do it? Short, often community based sentences with strong rehabilitation would be orders of magnitude cheaper and have a very similar effect on the ultimate crime rate.