Prison was put in place as a catch all when we didn't understand all the ways humans could be broken. Now we have a better idea, but we don't use that information. Instead low iq career criminals are incarcerated with high iq crimes of passion like Hans Reiser. Then you add drug addicts and child molesters to the mix.

Hans Reiser would likely never kill another person in his life if he was free. If he could have full access to a computer he would have likely continued to learn and build things. Instead we dump him with the rest of the dregs of society together into a broken system who's main role is retribution, which IMO is a human instinct we should fight against not codify.

It seems a lot like the public school system in it's general lack of differentiation in regards to inputs(prisoners). In terms of a learning system, it's diverged.