If we ballpark the average annual cost per inmate at $40K, that's a $1.6M price tag on "pretty good" -- assuming the costs don't continue to rise dramatically.

Funny how you phrase this to stand on your podium, wise man. I have no issue partitioning violent people from society and that's my final view. You actions have consequences.

Indeed they do, and among the consequenses:

Escalation of what may be moderate violence to make the time worth it.

Disregard for the law due to perception of poor justice.

Failure to recognize all forces regulating behavior to focus on harsh law alone tends to amplify undesirable behavior.

There are more.

The only thing I'm "standing on" is data that the system doesn't work. Just doing more of something that doesn't work isn't a great way to land on a functioning system.

Okay so I'm genuinely curious but I remember a debate around this subject that had very conflicting data /widely contradictory conclusions and I've never gotten to the bottom of it. So I was wondering:

Is it true that people who are convicted of violent crimes more than once usually proceed to have very high recidivism rates until they get in for good ? And that those repeat offenders make up for a very disproportionately huge part of the total violent crimes? That's maybe due to how the prison system perpetuates the cycle and need for violence especially for gang members, but idk if that explains why other violent criminals such as rapists and domestic abusers also (supposedly) reoffend more and non violent criminals in the same prisons less.

Again, I'm probably wrong but the claim was that if we isolated those repeat violent offenders from society we'd basically not only see a massive drop in violent crimes but also almost certainly prevent crimes that they are almost guaranteed to commit due to their recidivism rates. Obviously that ignores the moral argument for aiming to rehabilitate and reintegrate (which are both goals that I fundamentally support, except in rare cases ) but It would confirm a personal biais because I also tend to think based on personal experiences that some people are just violent and have a lot more violent impulses/snaps than normal people do.

Really? Because I dont hear about gang banger 70 year olds. Or 80 year old violent rapists.

This could be warranted for light non-violent crime. Or murders who had a very very good case (like they were brutally bullied or threatened and there is clear proof). Then I believe in rehabilitation. So I guess it really depends on the case. Most probably wont pass that test though.

> Really? Because I dont hear about gang banger 70 year olds. Or 80 year old violent rapists.

El Chapo is 64. I suspect much of the leadership of the mafia is aged. Or did you only mean front-line infantry when you said "gang bangers."