WHY DO WE PUT PEOPLE IN JAIL? MOST OF THEM, I MEAN

What, only 90 days for drunken driving through a school zone!?!  There's no more justice in this country.
Can you imagine that the guy who beat up a young girl only got 60 days?
Hah, I have a better one.  Guy shoplifted in a liquor store and got life!  LIFE!
The baseball player who assaulted a hotel maid got 2 years of probation.  Money talks, right?
I just made these up.  But the one about the liquor store guy is true.  But you know how the conversation goes.  You know how you feel when you hear some of this stuff.  Sometimes it almost makes you want to say, "HHmmmm, if that's all there is to it, it might just be worth taking a swipe at my boss."
Easy does it, please.
The only prison that I have even been inside is Alcatraz.  It's really quite interesting.  I have never been inside a real, operating type of hoosegow.  My wife though, she went to prison for about three months one year.  Federal prison to boot.  I mean, if you're going to go somewhere, you might as well go first class, right?  As a matter of fact, she loved it.  She had stories to tell every time I had visitation rights.  It wasn't bad, we would see each other for a few hours in the evenings.  Sometimes we even lit the candles on the table.  Truth to tell, she was a chaplain intern.  She had requested the toughest assignment.  She wanted to be with the drug dealers and the people who were being kept on the top floors of the calaboose.  Her request was granted.
Her favorite story was the 6'10", 300 pound monster who was her personal "guardian angel" on the 8th floor.  He accompanied her everywhere she went.  He was her protection.  He would parade around with her by his side, making a big deal out of the friendship that they had.  I have to admit that this hulk walking next to her at 4'9" and 115 el bees, had to be quite a sight.  Actually, there was some justice to this arrangement.  She deserved to be protected by this guy.  He also deserved to have some consolation in his life.  I am convinced of that.

It used to be that I was a lot harder on "the bad guys" than I am now.  I was a death penalty, lock 'em up and throw the key away kind of person. Then I had some experiences in different countries.  I got to know some strange people under some unusual circumstances and slowly but surely I had to reassess some of my convictions.  There was even a period in my life when I spent some time pondering about the real reason for the existence of prisons.  Do we have them to punish people or do we maintain them to convert people?  I get the feeling that in the USA the majority of the population would believe in the punishment angle more than the rehabilitation or restorative model.  I personally have to say that I am about 60-40 punishment - rehab.  I believe in the existence of invincible or intractable tendencies to either violence, or thievery or physical abuse of fellow humans and maybe a few more incorrigible human "foibles."  I have even had some experience with trying to help newly released people by working with professional social workers and bringing the newly freed person in to work for a company where I worked.  I have to say that these experiences ( twice I tried; two different companies in different cities) were not stellar successes.
So, I stay on the fence.  I remain a vulture.  Oh, I tried to go out there and "kill something" but was unsuccessful.  So now all I do is to sit here, ponder and write to you about my glorious thoughts and my miserable failures at social action.