I know what you mean, we have a “reeducate and reinsert” penal system in Spain, and some people keep asking for the death penalty for murderers. Dead people can’t become a member of society! 🙄

It’s just the Overton window, we have it still towards the side of reeducation, but some people keep trying to push it towards punishment. In the US, it’s already leaning towards punishment… and those people you mention, are the ones pushing it… so if you want that to change, you need to push it the other way.

Something like “so you think throwing people away is a good use of resources?”. Follow up with a joke about Soylent Green, or something, to make it look less confrontational… but ultimately it needs to be something farther away than your actual position, just like they do 🤷