>It's reasonable to want to remove members of society who are dangerously violent, or "cheaters" of sufficient scope. Yet iterate this desire over enough time, and it takes on a life of its own: politicians who want to look tough on crime, parents who want their fears assuaged, private companies who want to profit from correctional tax dollars, and most insidiously, the swaths of police, prison guards, and support staff who want paychecks, benefits and job security.

Of course, this assumes all the actors were initially well-intentioned, which they weren't. Plenty of people supported harsh policies of criminalization and "justice" because they wanted to come down hard on the dark-skinned and the poor.