150 years for Madoff

The punishment is the deprivation of freedom. The prison is the way we carry out that sentence. It's not supposed to be an additional punishment in and of itself. And the seriousness of the crime is reflected in the length of the punishment.

That there is so much societal acceptance of prison being a place where all sorts of horrible things happen (and I think that's somewhat overblown, though probably not by much) almost has to be part of the reason there is so much recidivism. The societal inability to forgive and reintegrate those who have served their time doesn't help either, and is ironic given the insistence on the U.S. being a "Christian nation."