That certainly doesn't seem to play out in the actual show. There was clearly an emphasis on a more continuous story right from the start. In fact, Rick Berman found it very hard to talk about the project with Gene Roddenberry for this very reason, among others (Roddenberry did not support continuous story lines and other themes the show explored, such as religion).

TheCycoONE, put it fairly well. Also, the fact that 16-24 year olds are the most likely to be victims is indicative that offenders are not picking their victims based on their perceived vulnerability to attack. If they were, a different age group would be more likely. Obviously not all 16-24 year old people are highly athletic self-defense experts, but there is a hell of a lot more of them than in, say, the 65+ category (which is the least likely to be victims of violent crime).
Placing the current victim "higher on the list" to the point where it detriments the care and rehabilitation of the offender ignores the plight of future victims. Obviously I agree that there should be care for the victims of crime, but if you actually want to solve the problem, the care of both parties is equally important.
There is strong sympathetic relationship between victims and criminals here, as criminals are also one of the groups most at risk from crime.

Anyway, how does sending someone to a bad prison that will make them more likely to reoffend protect the victim more than one that will rehabilitate the perpetrator?

"Young men aged 16 to 24 are most at risk of becoming a victim of violent crime." http://collection.europarchive.org/tna/20090120202659/homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/rdsolr1804.pdf Not exactly a group considered to be the "least likely to be able to defend themselves". In fact, crime perpetration and victim-hood have a habit of sharing common demographies (with some obvious exceptions).

Of course it is not a remotely typical prison, that is why I chose it. However, it contains some of the worst criminals in Norway.
I find your view of prisoners rather disheartening, though it is not a surprise. We are all taught to view criminals with a them and us mentality; as if people that haven't been convicted of a crime are morally sound, and those that have are a cancer ruining the rest of society. However the line between them is far more blurred. Indeed, practically all of us would be criminals if the law were omnipresent, fact is that only a tiny percentage of crime is ever dealt with.
The vast majority of prisoners entering prison are not stab happy psychopaths that will murder everyone around them given the chance. Most of them are decent people that have responded in a predictable manner to the difficult situations they have been in, or possibly have made a extremely bad and uncharacteristic decision under extreme conditions.
Humans are social animals, and will conform to the surroundings in which they are placed. If you put them into a prison with a system of fear from the guards, a culture of crime from the other inmates, give them no responsibilities, they will behave as such. This is why the recidivism rates are so high. Change the system, change the culture, change the outcomes. Obviously this cannot be done overnight, it will take a long time to undo the damage done by the current system, but it could be done.
I refer you to an excellent TEDx talk done by Prof Lesley McAra, head of my universities' law school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWEqLcPTv9U

I think you need to work on your counting skills. I counted 4 current US prisons and one closed (Alcatraz) out of a total of 20.
25% is extremely bad given the US's self perceived high ground in all things moral. Remember this includes the entire world, most of which is comparatively very poor and lacks the resources to do much better.
That said, imgur is hardly a reputable source and the list has clearly been skewed by US prison's notoriety in the west. I'm sure there are far worse out there.

I refer you to Norway: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083,00.html
Only fools support prisons that ignore the dignity of the prisoners. If you actually want to help society, you support and protect those that need it the most.

You are going to die.

Darned sight better than the crappy imitation larger we get sold in the UK. At least they have laws stating that to sell it as beer, you have to make it out of ingredients for beer. Seriously, most of the larger we get in the UK would be illegal across much of Europe (where it originally came from). It's only stuff that is actually imported (like Beck's) that is actually larger.

That is not the gist of what you said in the comment PopeRatzo was replying to. You implied flawed methodology and even the possibility of a conspiracy. That is neither patient nor intellectually valid.

You realise it is not possible to be peer reviewed in the conventional sense? The peers would require a new LHC. As it is, we have just about the best peer review process already: two experiments working separately, on different data, different methodology, with the same accelerator and they have both produced the same result.

PopeRatzo probably has you nailed down quite well, there. If a little harshly put.
Your information on this is, quite frankly, bullshit. I am familiar with the workings of the ATLAS experiment, and have been present at numerous private lectures given by them giving updates on their data and possible conclusions.
Indeed, far from being the last possibility on the list, the figure of 125.3GeV is basically exactly what the standard model predicted. In fact, the result is so predictable it is almost boring. You say that physicist would be deeply embarased if they didn't find it, but actually many were hoping to find a less expected result than this. So far, the results have not helped us at all with understanding dark energy (though, it is early days, still) as many had hoped. Supersymmetry is looking less likely.
It is OK to be sceptical, but you seem to be basing your comments on nothing more than an uneducated hunch.

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

It would take quite the academic to not know what binoculars are. Seriously, almost everything in the world is a throwback/reference to something that nobody uses/knows what it is any more. Compared to the English language, these icons are stupidly up to date. Fact is, they become self referencing and everyone knows what they mean. I don't want a big long box that says Address book when I can click on an easily recognisable icon. Stop fucking about with a system that works perfectly because of some flawed ideology.

My maths lectures.

If you read the post fully, the author offers "Bonus points for the best apt-get-able distribution that works with a tablet."