Seems like a natural consequence of the 13th amendment. Why would you make it easier for an escaped slave to remain free? There are literally shareholders who have a vested interest in recidivism.

Edit: In case it wasn't clear, I find the situation monstrous. Just stating my thinking behind why it happens at all, and might be hard to change.

You would think that an idea to reduce recidivism and thus reduce crime, like rehabilitation over punishment, would be popular in a democratic system, it's a real problem that it isn't. A bunch of states are dealing with this as there's a backlash for bail reform.

People just think punishing crime more reduces crime more and it's not (necessarily) correct. And in a democratic system we reward what people think is true over what is true.

In the US, all felony convictions come with a lifetime sentence. It's just that the sentence usually only includes prison time at the beginning.

It's pretty fucked up, especially considering how many victimless crimes are felonies.

I'm generally against prison for almost all offenses. There's no point to prison in America unless you just want to ensure someone suffers and is forever harmed by the state. Prison doesn't rehabilitate, it makes you into a worse person from what you need to do to survive. Prison doesn't encourage you being less of a criminal on release, it makes your life SO much harder to survive that crime is a much better option than before. Prison forces a social stigma forever through job applications and the like that ensures no one will ever forget and will treat you worse because of it. Prison and the justice system is designed to bleed money from poor people and their families so you can't even get out with a helping hand ready. Prison quality is incredibly low and practically zero Americans care about it. Just look at all the "prison rape" jokes: Americans by-and-large want prison to be tortuous due to a bloodthirsty feeling of vengeance and powerlessness.

Prison is there only to do further harm to those desperate enough to commit serious crimes in the first place. And to increase recidivism to ensure the prison industrial complex and police "unions" keep thriving. There's no point to sending 99% of criminals to prison but we have no alternatives besides mental hospitals which are not equipped to deal with a huge influx of violently disaffected people.

Your penal system is focussed on punishment whereas the European system is focussed on rehabilitation as prisoners at some point have to come back into society and you want them to behave.

On the other hand, US prisons are for profit so they have an incentive to make sure people stay longer and return faster so...

The US really is a fucked up place because of its economic incentives. I mean, the people aren't the problem, policies are.

"Now prisoner 24601...."

Which is exactly the point. The prison system is too profitable to risk the supply of prisoners drying up.

This is a feature, not a bug.

I have a family member who got into a physical altercation with an airport employee nearly twenty years ago over the way that employee was handling his laptop. The government will have its boot on his neck for the rest of his life, even though he went to prison (it was only like six months) and completed probation. He's since tried to start multiple businesses, started a family, and in other ways moved on. He's forbidden from certain parts of society similarly to the people in this article.

It's completely ridiculous that a non-violent person could have an out-of-character outburst and be punished forever for it. But try discussing that with anyone who's advocating for crime-and-punishment policies.

Does the world have a government or did the headline perhaps forget to mention that it's referring to one particular country...?