Good luck with this one. The American idea of adjudication for crime is so utterly fucked by indoctrination from decades of propaganda for privatized prison systems. It doesn’t matter if you point out that lengthy prison sentences do nothing to serve the public good, that research shows they do essentially nothing in terms of serving as a deterrent, that encouraging rehabilitation and correcting systemic issues that lead to crime would be the thing to truly address these issues. Let alone the systemic issues abound in the American justice system; that enforcement of crimes are disproportionately skewed to impact people of low SES and minority status, that this whole system is a front to enable modern day slavery.

Ultimately these people are just bloodthirsty and this gives them an outlet for that. They are vindictive and want an outlet for revenge fantasies. Just mention sex offenders and see how they become awful right wing weirdos with violent torture fantasies out of a saw movie.