What do you propose? The only thing I could think of is a justice system that uses sentences as a means of rehabilitation and reintegration into society instead of punishment and isolation from society.
Of course, that's looked on as being "soft on crime".
Canada has a system like that and I'm telling you, it's no silver bullet for a correctional system. Corrections Canada lies about their recidivism rates by only counting recidivism if the offender commits the same crime twice. So a criminal can rob a store and go to jail, get out and rape a women, and still not be considered a recidivist. As of a decade ago they were saying it was about 55%, when in reality criminological studies unanimously showed a recidivism rate anywhere between 70 and 90%.
That's the reality of how effective a full blown rehabiliation model is. It leads to idiotic policies and agendas that care more about the offender than the society we aim to keep safe. For Instance, pedophiles in Canada are pushed back into society often in less than a year after conviction, because the geneous sociologists and lefties running the legal system fear they will be victimized in prison, or deteriorate mentally from being in isolation. The result? Pedophiles reoffending in society.
I know a guy that's been in and out of prison his whole life and ended up stabbing a US soldier on vacation in the neck during a fight. He did a few years and is back out on the streets again. He's on my facebook actually lol. I get to see his life and he's a fucking time bomb. But lets keep him in society so he doesn't get any worse!!
I don't call for the kind of justice system you have in America, it's absurd. The best thing about the Canadian judicial system is that our judges have discretionary powers so they can take into account individual circumstances. We have less mandatory sentences. In America peoples entire lives get destroyed over a single mistake that in many cases didn't even cause any harm. I remember seeing this court cases in America where a women had let a 12 year old boy touch her breast. Wrong? yes. But they gave her like 25 years or something. It was her first offense and lets face it, the boy will be ok lol. The judge listened to the defense plea and then basically said, I hear everything your saying but the book says this is all I can do, smacks the hammer down and took her entire life away.
That's just sick. I'd like to see a system somewhere in between the Canadian and American one. Focus on rehab where you can but if someone is a clear threat to society, throw away the key.
EDIT: Here is the video, the defense attorney actually cries during her attempts to plea.