# Prison/criminal-justice reform: The huge vindictiveness roadblock

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prison-criminal-justice-reform-the-huge-vindictiveness-roadblock/927591>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 8, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prison-criminal-justice-reform-the-huge-vindictiveness-roadblock/927591 "2020-12-08T19:09:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 11

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**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prison-criminal-justice-reform-the-huge-vindictiveness-roadblock/927591/11 "2020-12-08T22:07:40Z")

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> [@FlikTheBlue](#):
>
> Property crimes like theft, pickpocketing, etc. would fall somewhere in the middle. Those offenders should be incarcerated for shorter time periods with a focus on rehabilitation for the underlying issues.

And/but/or we should take a deeper look into the foundational causes that lead people to crime and decide if it’s cheaper, better, and more morally correct to invest in improving circumstances far upstream.

As I said on [another thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/socialism-or-at-least-a-version-thereof-vs-capitalism/927389/):

> But – America being America – we default to the solutions that create profit for somebody, rather than seek to address root causes or ameliorate the misery piece directly.

Talk about a positive sum game …

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