I can't believe this post has gone this far.
It is like 10 virgins arguing over whether sex feels good or not.
for one thing, no one wants to go to jail for the television, cheap blankets and 4'' mattresses, because with them comes crappy meals, isolation and violence. Until you have spent a few days in the environment, you don't know butkus about it. The system has its own culture, its own morals, its own 'laws', and you adhere to it, or suffer the consequences. A prisoner has little personal property, and no personal space, they are frequently strip searched and frisked, their room 'tossed', and their actions supervised. They share common showers with people who have much different views on hygeine, and if lucky, have a small divider to allow a minimal amount of modesty while defecating. Television, Video games, and other items such as personal clothing are perks, for positive behaviour, buying into the institution rules, attending programming, etc. Just like raising kids, you need to have both positive reinforcement and punishment to run an institution. Treat a man like an animal, and you create a worse animal. Capital punishment doesn't work!
The education they get is correspondence, and few if any, have the ability to actually do anything beyond basic reading and writing. If we are lucky, the odd inmate may get their GED while in custody, and may learn a trade.......maybe they will even be fortunate enough to find someone that will hire them with that training. What we hope for the most, is that someone, be it clinical staff, support staff, or officers, reach one of them, and they become a positive statistic. Positive reinforcement doesn't always work, but it works a heck of a lot more than negativity.
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