The idea of rehabilitation, as I understand it anyway, is that anyone who commits crimes is "broken", "ill", or "maladjusted" in some way that may or may not be

The idea of rehabilitation, as I understand it anyway, is that anyone who commits crimes is "broken", "ill", or "maladjusted" in some way that may or may not be reversible (something is wrong with them, and we may be able to rehabilitate them). If we actually designed a system with that assumption, then all criminals would be treated as England treats "insane" prisoners. They may not all to to a hospital specifically, but they would all go to some sort of treatment program that was designed to rehabilitate them. They would be released when rehabilitated, no sooner and no later. This is pretty much my point in a nutshell: "One reason they gave was that in prison they had a sentence to serve, whereas in hospital it was treatment." What we do to people in prisons isn't a treatment (and I assert, never has been). If we actually designed our justice systems to first and foremost rehabilitate, all convicts would be on treatment plans. Personally I think that we should get away from punishment entirely, and move to incapacitation complimented with rehabilitation.