The resource they are given are provided by society, it's up to society to decide how to allocate them.

If we realize that it's barely more expensive or even cheaper in the long run to rehabilitate instead of punishing purely, we can decide to allocate more resources to rehabilitation (at least in theory)

They're spending over half a million dollars a year to house prisoners[0]. The resources are there but they're not using them for rehabilitation.

[0] https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-co...

Part of the problem is that caring for someone requires their cooperation. Caring for the least cooperative people requires even more cooperation.

>Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners.

The social and economic benefits of rehabilitation far outweigh any costs incurred in rehabilitating folks.

Communities would be wealthier and safer if we didn't penalize convicted persons for the rest of their lives, by denying them jobs, housing and access to the financial system.

And since we do penalize folks that way, is it any wonder they turn to more potentially lucrative illegal pursuits?

And the economic argument is even stronger than the social argument. All those folks could learn skills and provide boosts to local economies if they were allowed to get decent jobs. That would improve overall GDP and provide a strong incentive for convicted felons to walk the straight and narrow.

Is it necessarily easy? No. But it makes societal and economic sense.

Right. It also requires overcoming problems of trust and trustworthiness.

Doing the work to restore that trust is the work of justice.