Yglesias sees no good alternative:
[I]t’s tough to be the guy who’s going to bat for convicted murderers, pimps, and rapists. But the reality is that most people convicted of these crimes don’t serve life sentences. They don’t get executed either. So they have to do something. And the nature of the modern American economy is that the majority of job opportunities involve interacting with other human beings. … [W]hat is the job you want your ex-con murderer to be doing? We can’t ship them to Australia. Penalizing ex-cons by making them unemployable is only going to backlash against us in the form of reduced reintegration and more crime.
The Dish 