I agree it's not simple. I am advocating for activist (engineering, political, etc) efforts against The Bureaucracy. Public data is a component of that, from a transparency and accountability perspective, very similar to FOIAing everything you can get your hands on (ie muckrock.com). You want to be able to "show your work" in broad daylight.

I don't understand why that's your default presumption. Although I don't have any data about this, my impression is that generally people are aware of how long their prison sentences are and are released from prison when they are supposed to be.

This is a matter of administrating the law. If they're unwilling to do their job, they shouldn't have that job.