It's fine building a prison on the premise of second chances, but it will fail if the society it belongs to isn't build on the premise of offering a second (or third, etc) chance.

Either you believe in the ability of every human to change their behaviour, and you give them a chance to... every time... or you don't.

This, I feel, is tied to the death penalty too. Societies that give no second chance do not seem to worry too much about killing people.