> It very much is "Damn the consequences, and how much it costs, I want them to have the worst possible experience".
To be clear, I am not agreeing with the position I am describing. Rather, I am trying to very specifically say that it is NOT "very much... I want them to have the worst possible experience."
If anything, I think the attitude I described may be more reflective of the overall poor quality of life (relative to the possibilities) that the majority of Americans enjoy in their day-to-day lives due to the widening wealthy inequality. For many people, who can't even afford access to entertainment like "gaming consoles", providing such to prisoners out of the taxpayer's till makes them question why their life is so hard and what they're working for if they could just become anti-social and get enjoyment beyond "three hots and a cot". Granted, perhaps it would be useful if more people questioned their lot in life and how we got here, but the result of that questioning for many is not high-minded ideals and calls for more equality.
You seem to be reiterating the idea of vindictiveness in your conclusion, while acknowledging that something akin to spite might be more causative earlier on in your response. I am not sure I'd classify exactly what I'm describing as either spite or vindictiveness, but it's certainly a dark feeling. What I'm observing is that many people are uncomfortable with the idea of prisoners having an enjoyable enough quality of life such that their own non-prison life seems worse by comparison, it creates feelings of futility towards life and engenders a certain type of nihilism. I think considering that people are merely vindictive or spiteful is an oversimplification that does not fully encompass the complexity of the human experience. You should also consider that many people who are in the bottom half of American society /know/ someone who's been in prison, or may have been in prison themselves, so it is not as if the realities of the prison experience have escaped these people. As you rightly point out, the US has the highest incarceration and recidivism rates in the world, and it's predominantly people who are "lower class" ending up there, mostly from a demographic standpoint the same folks who hold the viewpoint I'm trying to point out.