Some circumstances are especially important - clinical psychopathy, for example. If you're born a psychopath, you have next to no hope of being an upright citizen unless you are diagnosed / aware of it and want to make sure you do not commit crimes. It's about 1% of the general population as per Wikipedia.

Now notice how the rich are supposed to be the 1% and rest of us are the 99%. That's a rubbish source, of course, and correlation is not causation, so we cant say that 1% psychopaths are rich and rule over us. However, there is a significant amount of truth in the fact that most rich and/or powerful people have some kind of psychopath / sociopath tendencies, traits and actions.

Another is the broader anti-social personality disorder spectrum. It is either inherited or developed or both. Yet another is the narcissistic personality spectrum.

If we could objectively test and bar psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists from entering positions of power or money, we would have a much better society.

Prison in Scandinavia is meant to give you time to think about your actions and reform yourself.

Prison in Germany is meant to rehabilitate you through introspection and limited interaction with normal life during your incarceration.

Prison in developing countries (and even in USA) is a terrifying deterrent of chaotic and cruel evil, inflicted on the unfortunate (not on the criminal, because you only get punished if you get caught and you don't have the means to exploit the loopholes the system provides) and currently a tool for political vendetta. Revenge is considered justice if performed by the state.

Revenge as justice assumes that people are evil and deserve mistreatment and punishment. Reform as justice assumes that people are good and deserve a chance to reform.

Some systems appear to the latter on paper but are the former.