So, the current system? The same strategy that's gotten us the high incarceration and crimes rates we have today doesn't seem like a solution to anything. Seems like a straightforward way to changing nothing.
Where is that missing? It is there today. The fact is that society bears the financial burden of someone spending a life in prison (and also the emotional/financial/physical burden of the person's actual crimes). You seem to be dismissing that to make an ideological stance.