This is wrong-headed. The more people we lock up, the more serious our crime problem will become, for three reasons. First, the prison culture extends respect to more serious offenders. The culture values the transmission of increasingly sophisticated and more remunerative criminal techniques. Second, prison teaches that any slight, any indignity, any threat to one's place in the pecking order, must be met with violence or else one will become subject to violence and degradation.
Inmates learn that violence is the means for self-protection.
Third, the basic human need for intimacy and trust is almost never met. In most societies, sex between adults provides a connection of intimacy. Sex in prison is permeated with violence, almost never with intimacy or trust. The overwhelming majority of all criminal offenses that were committed by prisoners were non-violent. Thus justice does not tolerate extremely long sentences for most offenders.