One of the things that also clouds people's emotional views on things like this is the discretion that judges/magistrates have in sentencing. The penalties specified in most laws are "maximum"; it's only recently that in countries such as Australia, that there has been a move to mandatory fixed terms specified in the legislation, mainly because of child-molestation and child pornography cases.

While everyone wants the book thrown at an offender such as a drunk-driver who has killed someone, the system (the laws created by legislators -- the politicians) enable the judge/magistrate to hear mitigtating circumstances that led to the crime, plus character references, even psychiatric assessments. The judge/magistrate then has to weigh all those factors and decide on a punishment that actually does fit the crime -- and if the mitigating circumstances in his/her view are adequate, or the possibility of rehabilitation without jail is good, then a lesser sentence is likely to be imposed. I think the judges/magistrates also look at precedent in sentencing to determine the most appropriate for a set of circumstances.

It does, too often, come down to lies, manipulation and well-crafted (or crafty) submissions by the defence lawyers (although, to be fair to them, they also can only work with what they are told by an offender who may bend the truth to suit their circumstances).

In addition, in Australia, it is not permitted to reveal that a person has a previous criminal record during a hearing or trial, even if it is for serial offences, because that is seen to be an unfair influence on the decision of the judge/magistrate/jury. It may be different in the US and other jurisdictions.

The hurdles continue to mount after the OP's election to office.

There simply is a large degree of inbuilt flexibility in the system, starting with police... who must consider whether the standard of driving in a fatal crash was culpable because of the degree of impairment, or the driving and impairment was only one of a series of factors attributable to both parties that led to the crash. You are unlikely to see a driver charged with murder unless the driver engaged in an action that was deliberately calculated to kill a person.

To me, the system really starts to break down when the lawyers come into it, and the deals they try to do with public prosecutor and judge can result in serial offenders failing to get what they deserve.

It doesn't do the families and friends any good at all -- but the process of change can only happen from the community... who elect the politicians (and in the US, the police chiefs and the judiciary, it seems) who make the laws and set the boundaries in the first place.

We could, of course, just have a computerised conviction system -- feed in the facts of the case, forget that someone might have had one single (life-altering) error of judgment, and is so remorseful that they will never ever offend again -- then print out the ticket that says go straight to jail for the one and only prescribed penalty. Actually, that sort of does happen now with on-the-spot fines, but people often overlook the fact they can go to court and use the same processes of sentencing including mitigation to perhaps decrease the sentence imposed on them compared with the on-the-spot one.

Note: I am not a lawyer, but I have covered enough court cases as a journalist and studied on-going ones to have a reasonable understanding of the processes in Australia. I don't think the principles are too much different in North America. Country courtrooms used to be rife with drink-driving and public drunkeness cases.