it’s hard to be a habitual offender while in prison
To the contrary, it's rather easy because:
+ many violations of prison administrative rules
constitute crimes.
+ prison is full of people inclined toward crimes
so it is easy to find partners in crime.
+ there's plenty of time to think up crimes.
+ protecting oneself from harm often requires
committing a crime.
I agree with you, and I think the author does too. He was stating the supposed reasons for incarceration (he states 'supposed' explicitly). Given the definition of supposed is: "generally assumed or believed to be the case, but not necessarily so.", I think those were fair statements. Especially since the focus of the article is how incarceration is not effective at achieving its goals.
The article - and what people in general think of as "crime" - reasonably and intentionally excludes crimes committed in prison. While one is in prison, one can't habitually offend against society at large.
That's a slanderously uncharitable reading. I happen to think the article is spot on, I happen to think our incarceration rates are an embarrassing tragedy and I happen to think that the poor conditions of our prisons are bad for its all. I was merely defending not including certain crimes in certain accounting.
I would go further than this article's assumption about diminishing returns.
It seems clear that when it stops being rare, locking people up for minor crime isn't merely pointless but is in fact woefully counterproductive.
Incarceration at the level seen in the USA, I believe has the net effect of actually creating extra crime through many well documented causes, including the destabilization of families and their extended communities, the crime-college effect for minor offenders at the same time as a reduction in their legal employment opportunities on release, not to mention the fact it lends significant credence to any robin-hood style narratives any professional gang cares to adopt, so helping them recruit.
To the contrary, it's rather easy because: