What you’re describing is more about failed rehabilitation. Lots of guys commit crimes, serve their time, and then commit more crimes.

So that begs the question — why the HELL are we letting them out? Why is there a time limit on how long someone gets locked up for? Why isn’t the standard “is this guy ready and fit to serve peaceably in society?” If the answer is no, then don’t let him out. If the answer is yes, he’s a changed man, he poses no threat to society anymore, then let him out. This whole “I served my time” attitude is insane. The prison system needs serious reform, starting at the most basic level: why do we even have prisons? And the answer is not and should not be “to punish criminals”, it should be “to keep society free from bad actors who cannot and will not live peaceably among society.” Once you’ve proven you’re a rapist/murderer/kidnapper, that’s it — you blew your chance, you are kicked out of society, prison is where you go.

Prison isn’t and shouldn’t be about “rehabilitation”. That’s never been and should never be the focus of prisons. All the charity groups in the world who want to conduct rehabilitation services and classes and such are welcome to, and God bless them on that mission. But prison is for when somebody has proven that they are a danger to society and they need to be removed from society.

Hell, that’s what the mass deportation is about: we have illegal aliens living here illegally who don’t belong here, so we’re getting them out of our society. Same thing with violent criminals — they should be deported from society, into prisons, where they can no longer rape and kill and molest and abuse and otherwise commit violence against peaceable members of society.

If someone can prove to a reasonable person’s jury that they have renounced violence, disassociated from any and all gang members, gotten appropriate psychiatric treatment or whatever they need to do, so that they are now capable of and willing to live peaceably among the rest of society, that’s when society can consider the debt repaid and allow that person back into society.

But to let them out, unchanged, because a certain amount of time has passed? How stupid are we?

It’s time for real, Trump-style, DOGE-style prison reform. Hegseth said it to the military, the military isn’t about “righting racial injustice” or “fighting climate injustice” or all the other hogwash it’s gotten caught up in; the military exists to be the most lethal fighting force on the planet. Same thing needs to happen to prisons, we all need to recalibrate our attitudes so that prison becomes the place where the most dangerous, derelict, deranged, evil bastards on the planet get locked up and stay locked up until either they change their ways and become genuinely good people, or they die. No more sentencing “for 1 year” or “for 5 years” or whatever. That’s pure insanity.

(for violent criminals, as of 2023) – 67% of released state prisoners are rearrested within three years and 84% are arrested at least once during a ten year follow-up, and almost 50% of released federal prisoners are rearrested within a two to three year span, for committing a violent crime of some sort – it doesn’t seem that putting them behind bars stops or deters them either. But one thing that does stop or deter them is shooting them when they show up to commit their violent crime.