Does This Time Fit This Crime?

In what appears to be a case of retributive sentencing, a jury unloaded on a pathological criminal in Texas yesterday: Felon Gets 99 Years for Stealing Phone - Yahoo! News.

Here's a guy who talks a lot of trash, and is clearly a robber and a thug. But does it make sense to spend so much money incarcerating him for 99 years, or would it make better sense to contain him in a mental facility and try to get to the bottom of his attitude problem? It's not like he's some criminal mastermind or psycho killer.

Of course, it was a Texas court, though.

More later...
Paul