There is a (relatively famous) prison in Norway where the rehabilitation is so effective that the prisoner's are given these jobs and are handed chainsaws, picks, the keys to the boat off the island. The prisoners are the ones ferrying people to and from the prison.
Sounds to me like (for the most part) we're doing prison wrong in the states.
How easy is it politically to build a min security facility in an area affluent enough to have day jobs for prisoners vs. building a max security prison in the middle of unemployed nowhere?
but this is all based on a deep rooted belief that most people are good, and crime is usually a result of low income/and growing up in places stuck in a cycle of socioeconomic hopelessness (atleast the kind of crime people are imprisoned for, weve already established wallstreet bankers commit crime and dont go to prison), taking people out of these toxic environments and equipping them with a job where they are exposed to society and have a chance to rebuild their lives is beneficial, for them, and society as a whole.
In U.S. politics we have 300million people binned into two extremist views and prison reform is'nt trending hot on twitter right now and if it was it would be used as a litmus test to pit half the country against the other and a debate about whether people deserve the life they have or can better themselves and deserve to be treated better and we all know how that has played out in politics recently. bigotry and stereotyping win.
Very little hope for the incarcerated in this country