another example of the stupidity in our system

This article is disturbing on a two basic levels: bureaucratic incompetence and our utterly bankrupt system of justice.

1) That it is possible for a clerical error to occur, and a man be in prison for 4 years rather than 40 - oops, my bad! Missed that zero....

2) That a man was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after 20, for shooting a man in the eye (caused him to lose his vision in that eye). Reason I find this disturbing? Multiple reasons.

• he was clearly remorseful, as the first thing he did when he got out accidentally is apologize to the man he shot
• he's black. How many white guys are in jail for 40 years who didn't even kill anyone??
  
• 40 years???? This is what gets me the most - the dude didn't even die! Since when is completely and utterly destroying a man's life (40 years!!) an acceptable method of resolving crimes?
  
• Again, he's black. That's probably why he got 40 years, along with the other colored inmates in whatever prison he's at. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, "At yearend 2005 there were 3,145 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,244 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 471 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.

A few reasons why this bugs me.
1) The assumption appears to be that if someone uses violent force, it is perfectly acceptable to consign them to a fate of living death. Sorry to reference Foucault here, but that is exactly the reason why cutting off someone's hand for theft makes more sense than 10 years in prison. I have spent short periods of time in what felt like a prison, in terms of not being able to back out of the contract, being forced to act a certain way and live in a certain place. It is utterly mentally defeating.
2) Some people who are sentenced in this manner were not at all bad people, but simply made bad choices. So, we lock them up for life. This is a very good, humane practice.
3) Time served does not necessarily mean that the person has paid their debt to society, even though that is the purpose in theory. Ex-convicts have a very difficult time turning their lives around because no one believes they are actually capable of managing it. Thus, the argument that locking someone up for a time serves to help them pay their debt for their bad behavior is disingenuous and misleading.
4) Such sentences fall most heavily on poor, black males. Anyone with half a brain ought to realize that locking so many people up costs taxpayers a pile of money. Wouldn't that money be better served in improving inner city education, encouraging community involvement, such as boys' and girls' clubs, or supporting other community building endeavors? However, this is a long term solution - Americans, in general, don't favor long-term solutions.
5) The concept of the prison as a method of restraining and/or punishing criminals is, in many respects, deeply disturbing. I personally believe that if someone knew they would lose their hand for stealing a car, they'd be less likely to do it. But then, you could lose your life in early industrial England for stealing bread, and people still did it, so who knows.

Main point - some poor (and I do mean poor, he probably had an underpaid, overworked public defender advocating for him) black dude shouldn't have gotten 40 years in prison for shooting another dude in the head . And the dudes who embezzle hard-working folks pensions get 3 years in minimum security prisons, sentences suspended.