Is It Just Easier To Throw People Away And Forget About Them?

Take a moment to think about the most straight-laced, law abiding person you know.  Maybe it’s one of your parents or a grandparent, maybe it’s your pastor or a close friend.  Some person who would never hurt anyone, who would never lie or steal or cheat.  Now imagine that person was taken away from all that they know and love and was locked in a place where they are harassed daily, abused, malnourished and denied medical treatment.  A place where violence is the only way to avoid being victimized, where aggression is the only respected means of communication.  A place of pure dehumanization.  Now imagine them after they have lived that life for a year, for five years, ten years, twenty.  What do they look like now, who have they become?
This is the reality of Missouri prisons.  Far from “departments of corrections” they do the exact opposite of what their name suggests.  The Governor, the directors, even the wardens feign concern for Missouri’s ridiculously high recidivism rate while the reality is that they are the people who are creating the problem.  Why would anyone in a so called “civilized” society ever believe for a second that exposing people to these deplorable conditions would do anything other than further exacerbate the problem.  These prisons are literally designed to fail.  The truth is that even law-abiding citizens, when subjected to these conditions, would have trouble maintaining an accurate moral compass.  How much more so people who struggle with drug addiction, anger issues, arrested development etc?
If a young man were to come to prison because he was a drug addict and he robbed a gas station to support his drug habit he would come to prison for a period of time between 10 and 30 years (depending upon the current political climate, and how wealthy he is).  Let’s assume this young man was 20 years old when he was sentenced, what will his formative young adult years look like?  Violence, anger, hate and fear. This 20 year old drug addict will eventually be released as a 30 to 40 something year old man with no life skills, a propensity for violence, a severe hatred for authority and PTSD.  Furthermore, he will have spent years of his life completely engulfed in criminal culture.  If this experience is capable of corrupting the law-abiding individual that you were thinking about, what would it do to the already fragile mind of a young drug addict, or to someone struggling with violent tendencies or any other criminal proclivities. 
The ineffectiveness of Missouri’s prison system is common knowledge, so why has nothing been done to correct this problem?  Is rehabilitation simply not cost effective?  Is it just easier to throw people away and forget about them?  Probably, that is, at least until you’re the one being thrown away. 
Just remember, these people who are returning from prison could end up being your neighbors, they could be coming to paint your house or drive you to the airport, they could be standing in line behind you at the gas station.  Isn’t it interesting how when you stop to consider that your life might depend on their rehabilitation, all of a sudden rehabilitation seems just a little more cost effective?
If a rehabilitation-based prison system seems unfeasible to you, please research Scandinavian prison systems and their recidivism rates.  All of the proof is already out there, we know what works and what doesn’t.  This problem is fixable.  Now, whether or not they will ever choose to fix it, that’s a whole other story