What about the massive amount of non-violent drug offenders in jail?

This is exactly why society as a whole gets to decide instead of the victim or relatives of the victim. It's human that harm done to you or a close person is hard to forgive, but societies goals differ from the goals of the individual: The individuals goal is revenge, the societies goal is to keep the crime rate low. Part of that is betterment of offenders since it keeps the rate of recidivism lower, thus creates less future victims. It's certainly unfortunate that the two goals are not perfectly aligned. However, given human behaviour as it is your question is misleading the discussion: The answer is probably "no" and still, society should choose a different way.

Maybe. Maybe not. If any of those things did happen I most likely wouldn't be thinking logically, so I'm not sure how much weight my opinion should carry. My thought process right now is that it does absolutely no good treating prisoners inhumane. As soon as they get out and they can't find a job because they have a criminal record and no current job experience they will turn directly back to crime. Now we have to waste money and resources on them again. Not to mention that they could cause more harm to other people. It really does no one any good.

I'm not the OP, but I discussed this in a philosophy class. My answer was yes back then.

Later in life, this belief was tested, badly. My answer was still yes.

According to the philosophy classes survey, I'm not in the majority for this view. I thought that was interesting.

Of course not.

But you do know why this is a terrible point, right?

This is exactly why we have courts; to deliver justice over vengeance, having proven guilt.

Victims and offenders are extremes. Victims want maximum sentencing for vengeance and punishment, offenders want maximum mercy. Neither is likely to be fair to the other. Courts are there to moderate and hand out fair rulings based on societies agreed laws. (yes I know many have problems with laws, but thats a totally different discussion)

Your point relies on the notion that because as a victim we would want maximum punishment for vengeance, that is how the law and justice system should be. Well, no, it is the exact opposite. You must have heard the opposite argument : What if you and your family were starving, would you steal to eat? Would you kill to steal so that your child might eat? Exact same logic, just opposite. Now we can argue for a very lenient justice system, right? Well, the justice system sits squarely int he middle of both. Its must give out fair punishment. Its must be fair to BOTH sides.

This type of point is as bad and manipulative as the "what have you got to hide" routine. IMHO, its an abuse of language and the people its used against. It is politician talk.

And to play angels advocate, are you positive you'd have the same view if your spouse murdered someone? Your daughter sexually assaulted someone? Your mother beat the hell out of someone?