Actually I think prison sentences are too long. Prison doesn’t rehabilitate but is a criminal training school for criminals that learn to be better criminals. No I am not a liberal bleeding heart but quite the opposite.
There are certain crimes that must be punished by death. These are rare but if proven beyond a “true” shadow of doubt the ultimate punishment must be extracted. This is not only removing an individual from society that can not exist in normal society it is also vengence. Vengeance is good!
Then there are other crimes. Is it better to put a person in jail for 10 or 20 years or put him in jail for 2 or 3 years of a living hell that will make him be totally mortified of being a criminal again? This living hell does not need to use physical pain. Isolation in solitary works best. There are other methods but they are against the law.
This is simply behavior modification in extremis. It does work and it is brutal to the psych but not the body. It does work.
In prison it is good to be assigned to a work detail on the roads. You get out of your cell and into the light of day and feel the wind on your face, the smell of flowers, grass, leaves and the sounds of birds that are the voice of freedom. In prison you do not have this but you do have the companionship of other prisoners. When in solitary you have nothing and that is a living hell of the mind.
It is brutal, it works.
If this country wants to win the “war on drugs” then drug dealers (not users) should be executed; they kill people and destroy lives and families as well.
As for the length of prison sentences, they are too short for people who have served notice that they are simply too wild & dangerous to be around People That Matter.