Pike spent her prison time in solitary confinement

Absolute torture.

Warning, hard questions ahead, but, don't worry, I'm sure you can find easy answers.

You might as well just stop reading, and downvote me now.

These are the cases that test the limits of human empathy and compassion.

When we imagine that "there are some people who can't be rehabilitated", how certain are we? In this case, did anyone even try? Who decides when we give up, are the people deciding this fully qualified to do so? Is it a judge listening to a single "expert witness" psychologist? Is it the prison warden deciding? Should more people be consulted, are we ignoring possible solutions out of convenience, or even anger and bloodlust?

Are you qualified to decide? Do you know what's possible? I don't. Did you read what she did and say, "she's not worth the effort, she can't be helped, the only thing to do is lock her away"? Is that your expert opinion? Maybe you learned it from a movie?

Everyone wants simple answers and the simple answer is to say that this person, because of what she did, deserves death, or at least to be locked away for life, out of sight, out of mind. Allow the brutal prison system to do whatever it wants. The experts must know what they're doing. Why even try with this one?

I think "that's the best we can do", only because no one has tried harder.

Have we tried absolutely everything, can we think of nothing more? What could be learned from more concerted effort?

These are the cases that test us and I think we give up out of disgust, hatred, and convenience. Not to mention money in our for-profit prison system.