Admittedly I don't have a lot of experience in the punishment issues but I do have a few close experiences.
One involved a young man who got tangled up with drug dealing and use and gangs. Ended up in minimum security prison for several months and wanted to stay clean after release. He got targeted by past crim associates and pressured back into crime and then more jail time. Killed himself after second release.
Other things I have seen are chaps coming out of prison into work and going ok until hit on by past crims associates and or rellies who want cash handouts and similar bludging. Some of these chaps try to rehabilitate their lifestyles but are in catch 22 where to be free of crim influences they have to isolate from old friends whanau and even places they lived. To do so is hard.
I see the system failure as being lack of very strong probation rules along with very strong protection for the ones trying to stay clean, from criminals amd their pressures.
Such protection would require laws in place to enforce the prevention of criminal associations with ex crims and their families. The civil rights implications would be complex but the reality is that hardened crim groups and families don't give a hoot for anyone but themselves. They create and breed their own separation from decent society and it is cancerous unless removed zapped or isolated such that the disease cannot spread.
I have seen potentially good men and families swallowed into poverty and crime simply because of influence from crim friends rellies and associates which the family would not or for some reason could not isolate from.
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