“Rule of law is essential for maintaining the peace in civil society. It is also an act of faith: People presume and trust that everyone else around them will act lawfully and safely. “
When the rule of law is perverted to the point where good citizens cannot protect themselves from bad ones, and in fact rewards the bad ones by various taxpayer funded channels such as cushy prisons, job training, and a death penalty that is never enforced, then it ceases to be anything a reasonable person can have faith in.
That is quite a mixed bag and does not deserve to be damned en masse. Job training is offered to any of the poor who care to apply, con or not. Being punitive for punitiveness’ sake is not a Judeo-Christian value. It is a worldly value.