I think jails are the question here, not the people in jail

Do jails really help society or do they make society worse? Yes, I believe that if someone is a threat to others they need to be kept from commiting harm. It is how we treat a person who is "locked up" that I believe is the issue. The way jails operate today we cannot expect to see anything produced other than hardened criminals in my opinion. The current system has nothing to do with correction and only serves to impose punishment and condemnation. So to answer the question, it is not a matter of who should be kept in jail but how we deal with people who break the law. It requires much more than just determining weather or not someone can be classified as violent or non-violent and more to do with the system as a whole.