You’d think that in modern society which purports to uphold basic universal (i.e. for everyone) human rights and such, crimes would be handled a bit more sensibly than “let them rot in misery in the worst conditions imaginable” or “stab the fucker in the eye until he dies.”
You’d think we’d be beyond the eye for an eye mentality and instead of punishing people (which has been shown not to keep people from committing crimes in the first place, if I remember correctly), we’d actually help them and in the worst cases where that’s not possible, just keep them away from society so they can’t do any harm.
In other words, actually rehabilitate them, so they can try to make up for what they did.
I think that’s a much more sensible solution.
Of course, a lot of time, energy and of course money goes into rehabilitation, but I feel quite confident that this would be largely offset by the reduction in costs of imprisonment (or even execution) and the benefits of the criminal becoming a productive member of society again.
And obviously rehabilitation isn’t applicable for all crimes, or for all criminals.