I love seeing prison photos from other countries that show how well prisoners can be treated while still being in prison. Countries with extremely low recidivism.

And there are plenty of people I know who would see that and balk, because “that’s being too soft”

I’ve had people insist that stronger punishment over rehabilitation is what you need, and ignore my bringing up that there’s decades and decades of data that shows otherwise.

At best, the harsh punishments serve as a deterrent to other people doing similar things that might result in similar punishment, but that just creates new and sneaker crimes and criminals. It’s better to rehabilitate, help people turn their poor choices around, and eliminate the cause of the problems that led to the crime in the first place.

But that’s “too much work” so might as well not even try, right? As we all know, the light bulb famously was invented on the first couple tries.