"I personally don't care about your well being because you fucked up and I'm scared of you" mentality would be like saying, "Why should I pay taxes for public schools if I don't have kids?"
No, I'm happy to pay my taxes to put them in jail and pay for their life in jail. Once they get out my debt to them ends, I would rather they lived somewhere else. A better analogy is I'll pay for your kids to go to school, but once they graduate they're on their own.
And a significant portion of the population is now an ex-prisoner or ex-felon. "In 2008, about one in 33 working-age adults was an ex-prisoner, and about one in 15 working-age adults was an ex-felon. Among working-age men in that same year, about one in 17 was an ex-prisoner and one in eight was an ex-felon." http://www.cepr.net/press-cent... [cepr.net]
If your point is that perhaps we have too many laws, that some of our laws penalize people for dubious crimes, I agree. I would like to see some of those laws (i.e. marijuana) removed. That said, it's still the law in most places and if you can't or won't follow the law, you clearly don't have good impulse control and I find it hard to trust you. It's not hard to not smoke pot, it's easier still to not deal pot. Just don't do it, problem solved. Feel free to campaign to get the laws changed so you can, I've got your back. Until then don't get all whiney about how unfair it is that you get branded a criminal for breaking the law, that's the definition of the word.