how does the taxpayer benefit from the inexistence of rehabilitation programs?

It's not mutually exclusive.

Someone can both work towards rehabilitation and pay their 'debt to society'. If they earn over what it costs to house them in a Maine prison then, by all means, let them keep the excess earnings. If they earn $100k/year and the state pays them $1.35/hr then there are deeper institutional issues around prison labor exploitation which should be addressed.

I used to have an uncle who was constantly in and out of prison over drug-related issues and he would do all sorts of work programs just to break up the monotony. Ironically, none of these rehabilitation efforts did any good and what finally 'set him straight' was the Three Strikes Law.

Taxpayers are clearly wasting money on this guy.

Sounds like he gets out in 10 months, and an incredible amount of money gets spent keeping him there.

I wrote a letter to the judge to support his early release. My initial plan was to hire him once he was out. I am very sad he was denied his request.

Because that's what a social community would do. But where you probably are, such an approach is falsely labeled as “communism” by MAGA anti-social assholes.

false labeling- Your lack of introspection is wild lol

Ad Hominem is only bad if it's used against my in-group

Imprisoning someone is also a great harm. That harm should have a cost, so that it is not employed flippantly.

It's the taxpayers putting him in a cage. The taxpayers should have to pay. It's like if Mormons decided you needed to be caged for questioning the golden tablets, then tell you that you have to carry the costs of the Mormons' violence on you.

If the taxpayers were smart: a few US states worth of land would be converted into a Gaza like reservation, where the only guarantees and service are protection from invasion and suppression of any gang which gains a reasonable monopoly on violence. It's fenced, with security and ports of entry and exit. Citizens can come and go, outlaws can only come until status is restored or they leave the country (re-entry to be denied). Sentences become time there instead of fenced concrete camps. Now you have a mechanism to fix prison into a rehabilitative hospital and job training system, which is voluntarily elected in lieu of the outlaw badlands zone.