> Whereas someone who has committed 30 petty thefts and then gets arrested, locked in a cage, and guarded by armed agents of the state, is extremely unlikely to commit another theft as long as he remains locked in the cage.

How does that help, if after incarceration that person become a much hardened criminal both because of the lack meaning pathway to integration, and you know spending years locked up with the worst of society.

> but we don't really have a good understanding of what specific people can and cannot be rehabilitated, or how to go about actually effectively doing the rehabilitation.

Then let's work on that.