Why do you say this? From everything I've read I don't think there have been many changes at all.
Granted letting people fend for themselves on the streets and be poor and destitute through financial marginalization isn't always a lot better.
I admit that they probably bear some similarities in the patterns of procedure and behaviour that take place in them, but they are not the stark, inhumane, prisonlike environments portrayed in that book/film. You're right though, "utterly unlike in every respect" is probably too strong.
So you lack first-hand knowledge, and your argument is easily seen as a biased defense of a family member -- an authority figure, even.
I don't think you're helping your cause any.