You have a punitive and revenge based system instead of justice. That it is refered to as a 'justice' system is either a simple error, an attempt at propaganda, or some kind of twisted joke - or perhaps all three.
Could you elaborate on that? If the alternative is to give a slap on the wrist and let everyone go, I'd prefer a system where criminal offenders are punished.
...and that's the entire problem summed up very neatly right there.
While the consensus in the USA is that the only possible alternative to brutality is 'to give a slap on the wrist and let everyone go', there is not even the possibility for debate.
How about, instead of a system where criminal offenders are punished, you have a system where criminal offenders are reformed, rehabilitated, and released to become productive citizens? This has been demonstrated to work in various parts of the world; The Norwegian and Icelandic systems seem to do a fair job of it, and there is a scheme I came across at Darwin jail in the Northern Territory that also has shown some excellent results.
The problem with the US attitude is that there is a cultural assumption that 'good' and 'bad' are appropriate categories to describe human beings; and that these are pretty well immutable - a person chooses the light or the dark side, and is there for life. The system is set up to detect which citizens are flirting with the 'bad' side of the line, and to punish those people severely, in the hope of shocking them back into being 'good'; once a person has strayed too far into evil, they are irredeemable, and need long term incarceration, lest their evil infect others. As Marge Simpson said of Nelson Munce, "He is a very lonely and troubled little boy, and he needs to be shunned".
If, rather than 'good' vs 'bad', we view people as 'fortunate' vs 'unfortunate', and we act to redress the misfortunes of those who are unlucky, rather than making outlaws of them, we see much better outcomes. Sure, there are some people who are irredeemably 'bad'; but such cases are very, very rare, and are better treated as psychiatric, rather than criminal, cases.
Of course, the fact that most crime is the result of misfortune flies in the face of the American myth of self-sufficiency, and is terrifying to those who have a cultural disposition to the 'good/bad' dichotomy. If the difference between me, as a good person, and the guy who stole my wallet, as a bad person, is purely circumstantial, then I am not inherently any better than he is. That truth is so distasteful that most cannot bring themselves to even consider it.
Personally, I blame Christianity. The story of the battle between good and evil is so ingrained in Christianity that Christians cannot think outside that particular box - and Christianity is so dominant in the USA that this way of thinking is unavoidable to Americans, to the point where they can't imagine that it is not universal amongst all of humanity.
Every part of US culture, from the Lone Ranger and Superman, to TFT posts by Loren Pechtel, has, at its core, the presumption that 'good' and 'evil' are real and significant categories into which people can be placed. This error is the source of much unpleasantness, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the US 'justice' system.
But as to murders, rapist, those commit assault and battery, larceny, arson, etc., I've little sympathy. But if you want to give them a pat on the hand and extract a promise that they'll not do it again, then lets make sure we release them into your neighborhood.
