Not as free as the "patriots" think.

It is interesting. Either we have a true prison-industrial complex or we as a society truly think it's better to retributively punish most infractions against the law.

Or Americans are worse than other people.

Myself included, of course!

Doubtful.

What if I told you prisons in Denmark have PCs with wifi in each cell? That they get carpet flooring and nice beds? Prison is more treated as social rehabilitation. Not a vengeance-driven punishment system.

Rehabilitation certainly has its purpose in life. So does retributive punishment. I think we need institutions for both, because some folks straight up can't be rehabilitated.

So if you they lack the capacity for rehabilitation, punish them? Ehh, disagreeing on that one. You just leave them in their social seclusion (which is what DE does.) Justice cannot blind if vengeance is thy name. Prove me wrong.

If you imprison some psychopath, give him a hotel suite, YouTube, and therapy for five years, then they go out and (for example) kill someone again because they thought it was fun, did you actually accomplish anything?

Hyperbolic, perhaps, but you can't possibly be so optimistic as to think nobody so sick and twisted exists who needs to be locked away and truly deprived of what society has to offer because they spurned the rules of society.

A fair argument, but also worth looking at to further augment my point that their system works better is that their recidivism rate is half of what the US holds. (DE 27% and US 49-80%, depending on the crime.) Only those who are considered a danger to society are not let back out on the streets. But, if one can be rehabilitated, they are free to walk and continue to be productive members of society.

In our country, most of the time, people become repeat offenders, slip into gangs, lives of crime and so on.

_Obviously_ they're doing something right over there.