From my observations of the criminal justice system, they don't want people to go to jail. It is expensive and it really doesn't do much good. A 60% recidivism rate would illustrate that fairly well. What they are trying to do is get people to stop committing crimes.

If the offender is a career criminal and shows no interest is rehabilitating himself, the only recourse is remove them from society as much as possible. But for people that have a productive job and may have a chance to change their behavior, if they show an honest interest, they tend to try as many things as possible to keep them out of jail. Rehab, probation, suspended sentences, etc. Regardless if they have money or a good lawyer.

One of the keys I noticed was people have to be responsible for their own behavior. I see a lot of people going before a judge saying, "it wasn't my fault" when they were in a bar punching a girl while on probation or something.

"Dexter_Sinister" wrote:

In September 2006, Kiel was arrested for multiple drug charges including possession, possession with the intent to sell, and transportation of a controlled substance. Police came to the Chargers practice facility and arrested him. He was released after posting a $1,550,000 bond.

In February 2007, he pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor drug charges for shipping codeine-based cough syrup to Texas. He was released by the Chargers after his plea and was sentenced to three years of probation. The felony charge was dropped after he volunteered for 175 hours and underwent counseling for gambling.