> It's nonsensical, designed to appeal to emotion instead of presenting a coherent, logical approach to sentencing.

That's the thing though. Sentencing in the US is driven by emotions. That's how they like it. That's what they want.

Nobody cares about what's best for society.

Nobody cares about having five times the recidivism rate and the highest prison population in the world.

What they do want is satisfy their base urge for revenge. And they're pretty good at that.

Different goals, different outcomes.