“You don’t believe in anything in between? It’s either a 100% return, or life in prison?”
Yes...
You don’t even sound like you are fooling yourself.
Have you ever been a part of a social structure of future cons, ex-cons, and repeat cons, and in and out cons, and never caught so far felons, who were your friends and roommates and running buddies, who you knew what they were really like, and what they would think about this nonsense?
Have you ever run with the Sociopaths and Psychopaths and seen how they don’t even see prison and doing time like you seem to think they do, and not just them, the system itself that has to manage them?