the great prison reform needs

(disclosure: much of what little i know of prison reform needs are influenced by jeffrey archer's "A Prison Diary" in 3 volumes; 1. Belmarsh: Hell, 2. Wayland: Purgatory, 3. North Sea Camp: Heaven")


One possible contribution to the US national debt is the highest per capita mass incarceration. Reducing the number of tax payers by incarceration while at the same time increasing state and federal cost of prison upkeep led to privatization of the prison industry. (which incidentally, sustains poverty)
source: http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/american-broken-prisons-mass-incarceration/
            http://www.nonewprisons.org/prisons/

However, privatizing prisons had an adverse effect on reducing the the total spent on incarceration. It would be in the industry's interest to increase total incarcerated to gain more funds overall, even if cost per prisoner is reduced.
source: http://www.correctionsproject.com/corrections/pris_priv.htm

This would trend towards overfilled prisons, endangering prison wardens and lax security.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303380004579524063971076656


So how do we correct this problem now?

• make prisoners work; build homes, dig drainage ditches, pull weeds, pick up trash... stuff that cities need. (might be a problem if convicts have a hard time following rules, that's why they are in prison to correct that attitude, and/or learn to reintegrate into society, not make them worse by teaching the bad habit of not working)
• reduce prisoner rations by half: this is done on board military ships; when a person is hungry, they start thinking real fast about what they did wrong to get there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-judicial_punishment    
• reducing prisoner comfort (removing tv's, radios... stuff that helps make life easy and would distract from genuflecting)
• education opportunities; accessible technical skills courses, classes (not making college free, but just teaching the basic and/or skills necessary for jobs, would help the professional labor shortage too)
• job opportunities; even if a convict is educated, cleaned up and presented well, if society still does not accept convicts as part of the work force, then resorting back to a life of crime to provide for basic necessities would occur.
• teaching morals as a lifestyle, and not just a guideline; starting from a young age, schools need to emphasize (and apprehend) cases of bullying by students and teachers, so the young minds are influenced by good tempers and be a contributing member of society. in the moral sense; as above, so below. the students and children will follow their role models of teachers and parents. We can turn this around Yo!

and another interesting side note;

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2016/01/convict-chain-gang-rations-van-diemens.html