The important thing to remember here is that these people aren't (just) dumb. They have different values. They *know* that some percentage of the people they let out will reoffend, but they imagine that to be a kind of statistical truism with no solution. They think of it like this: everybody reading this is free and some percentage of *you* will commit a crime this year, too, so should we lock everybody up?
The move that makes this work is an unwillingness to consider that criminals might in any way be different from everybody else. On this view, recidivism is just the price of a free society. And it's actually worse than that, because they cite data showing that prisons are criminogenic to justify the position that we sort of have it coming.
The move that makes this work is an unwillingness to consider that criminals might in any way be different from everybody else. On this view, recidivism is just the price of a free society. And it's actually worse than that, because they cite data showing that prisons are criminogenic to justify the position that we sort of have it coming.
It's no good to repeat, "but don't they know that these people they're releasing are going to commit more crimes?!?!" over and over again until the sun burns out. Of course they know that. They think it's just the price to pay for living in a democracy, etc.
This is all part and parcel of a worldview that says that it's unfair to hold people's past behavior against them. They want to make it illegal for landlords to even *ask you* if you've committed a crime! This is the party of endless second chances. You can always start anew with a blank slate.
I'm trying hard here not to ridicule or strawman the position. This is just what they really believe!
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