>What portion of those arrested + detained are the type of people we want in society/civilization?

Check a list of countries by rate of incarceration[1]. Then ask yourself if it's likely that the US, El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Palau and Rwanda are the grouping that have it right. That's the top 5, in order, all at 511+ per 100k.

For comparison, Australia is 160, England is 130, Canada is 104, France is at 93, etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...

Edit: Generally, I read all that as "probably 3 or 4 of every 5 US prisoners don't need to be in prison".

Part of that is a side effect of poor public health policy in the U.S., where mentally ill and addicted either end up in jail or in a tent on the street instead of in a treatment center or an asylum like these other first world countries.

Probably a sizable number of them. Because the people in prison are still people, and there's no good reason to keep most of them locked in a cage if they're not posing a risk to other people.

A large portion, in my opinion. You can disagree.

A huge portion of them, considering just how much of our prison system is filled with first-time non-violent offenders. Also considering the socioeconomic effects of even a misdemeanor drug conviction at a young age, a lot more career criminals could've been prevented by not sending them to prison in the first place.

What portion of those who benefit from this system and who run our country’s legal system do we want in civilization? Betting the portion in the slammer is higher.

Quite a lot of them are young people whose ""type"" is not yet fixed. To believe that America's high prison population all deserve to be there is to believe that America is a place full of uniquely bad people, which is quite the .. unpatriotic? take.