There is no doubt that our criminal justice system is far from perfect. As someone whose name escapes me once put it, "It's not a system, and it has nothing to do with justice, but it is criminal." That said, sometimes the reason people draw long prison sentences for a very good reason that has nothing to do with systemic racism or bad lawyers.

We want to believe in rehabilitation and redemption, but we also have to realize that the patterns of behavior and personality traits that send a man to prison for several decades are rarely made better by incarceration. We should be surprised that a man who drew a 50-year sentence for violent crimes killed someone in the same way that we would be shocked that a poisonous snake bit someone. //

How much risk are we willing to inflict upon society so we can feel good about ourselves?