I think at the root of this is a very prevalent attitude among a many people in America toward "not letting people get away with things"
I don't think you can look at this in a vacuum - you need to see these punishments as simply another manifestation of this attitude. This is not a "this group vs. that group" thing; you may find this among "fire and brimstone" Democrats just as often as your "Limburgh Republicans".
I've often said the difference between these groups is: given 100 people asking for a free meal, the liberal will take satisfaction in feeding 99 hungry ones; this type of conservative will fret over the one person who "got away with" getting a free lunch he could have afforded himself.
(Side rant: these people tend to be among the loudest Bible-thumpers, and think "the Good Lord helps those.." is an actual biblical passage.)
Rehabilitation as a way of dealing with miscreants doesn't work in the US for the main part because there is too large a segment of the American populace who feel that these various programs equate to giving them a reward for bad behavior. Why should they (the convicted) get a free hand with job placement when no one else is "being coddled"?
(The wonderful quote "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple" always comes to mind here.)
So you see, Americans understand perfectly well all the logical and economic aspects of this issue. The fact is, it is built into our culture to punish people. We get satisfaction from it. We're not after what's best for the country, we're after revenge.
It's ugly, but I've been around for many years & I stand by that statement.
I don't think you can look at this in a vacuum - you need to see these punishments as simply another manifestation of this attitude. This is not a "this group vs. that group" thing; you may find this among "fire and brimstone" Democrats just as often as your "Limburgh Republicans".
I've often said the difference between these groups is: given 100 people asking for a free meal, the liberal will take satisfaction in feeding 99 hungry ones; this type of conservative will fret over the one person who "got away with" getting a free lunch he could have afforded himself.
(Side rant: these people tend to be among the loudest Bible-thumpers, and think "the Good Lord helps those.." is an actual biblical passage.)
Rehabilitation as a way of dealing with miscreants doesn't work in the US for the main part because there is too large a segment of the American populace who feel that these various programs equate to giving them a reward for bad behavior. Why should they (the convicted) get a free hand with job placement when no one else is "being coddled"?
(The wonderful quote "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple" always comes to mind here.)
So you see, Americans understand perfectly well all the logical and economic aspects of this issue. The fact is, it is built into our culture to punish people. We get satisfaction from it. We're not after what's best for the country, we're after revenge.
It's ugly, but I've been around for many years & I stand by that statement.