“It will mean massive cuts in education, hospitals, prisons. These are things people don’t want to see cut.”
Just eliminate them all and solve the problem!
When all the 3 strikes losers get dumped back into "civil" society, the failure to keep them incarcerated will be noticed. What a fabulous waste of the original expenditure of law enforcement and judiciary resources to separate them from "civil" society. No problem. We'll just have to spend the money again. Lots of us will be room temperature in the process. Why not? It "saves" money.