Isn't this purposefully minimizing what essentially amounts to a poor-people-torture machine.

The purpose of the system is what the system does.

In the US we have deeply ingrained perverse financial incentives in criminal justice with wildly variable sentencing that depends on the mood of the judge that day.

Stray any amount from the fine line of legal, and if you're unlucky you could be plunged into a system where you'll be put into massive debt, while also losing your job, home, important documents, etc. We claim to want to reform criminals, yet we kick out their feet at every turn and expect them to say "thank you".

And then the people who face the smallest amount of risk to being victimized by this system like to say "Yeah, it's not perfect".