I think it's possible to be "tough on crime" with respect to removing violent offenders from society while also reforming how prisons work on the inside as well as attenuating the problem from the frontend via social services and so on.

I've always been a pretty moderate liberal, but seeing how "soft on crime" policies (reducing the amount of policing and catch/release prosecution) have dramatically harmed communities in Chicago (especially the minority communities that were "plagued by racist police") over the last ~decade has made me into a "hard on crime" person insofar as I think violent offenders should be removed from society first and foremost. We can work on tackling crime from the frontend and we can try and make prisons more humane, but I don't think these concerns can override the need to keep law-abiding people safe.