Saying that prison sentences are about "paying a debt to society" is laughable. Three-strikes laws can make three fairly minor individual offenses add up to lif

Saying that prison sentences are about "paying a debt to society" is laughable. Three-strikes laws can make three fairly minor individual offenses add up to life imprisonment. Keeping anti-racist literature in your cell can land you in solitary confinement for decades. If there's anything the US prison terms are "about", it's kicking a whole class of people while they're down and unable to do anything about it. Any politician can promise to increase sentences and appear by doing so to support "law and order" or the appropriate amount of crypto-racism or whatever it is people support these days. Felons are stripped of their ability to vote in some states, so there's literally no chance for retaliation and thus literally nothing to lose, and potential to gain. As a result, prison sentences are huge and there's no way to reduce them politically. American prison sentences betray the basic lack of empathy of American politicians.