"Pay for their crimes" is extremely vague, if you steal a cigarette should you go to jail? Most people would say "no, just give him a fine". But it has cost 300 billons on tax dollars to capture, convict, and jail the 2 million people that lives in American prisons, which is 25% of the world prisoners, mostly because there is harsh punishments for soft crimes (drugs, minor robbery, etc)

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/february/punishing-taxpay...