Sounds exactly like the description of the psych hospital where I work....sans educational opportunities.
Prisons are supposed to be a place of rehabilitation in a lot of aspects. If we expect people to not go back then they obviously need things to help them function in the real world. You can't have someone in prison for, say, 15 years and then at the end of their sentence get put on the street with no real skills of how to function outside of prison. I have no problems with people having a religion or having a chance to educate themselves or having a chance to actually change themselves through thereupeutic programs. Earning a bit of money through jobs in a prison teaches work ethics....learning that you have to behave a certain way and not act up in order to get minor privileges teaches valuable life skills that likely they didn't have in the first place.
I don't have problems with a certain amount of recreation because it can be a dangerous dangerous thing to house a bunch of people up together constantly together and no way to safely blow off steam. No way to safely blow off steam makes an already dangerous job for CO's even more dangerous. Idle minds can make big trouble so if there aren't things like games they will come up with a lot more dangerous things to occupy some of their time.
Not everyone views prison as a learning experience....yes many work the system and many don't take responsibility for their actions or don't want to work on themselves. Not every person who has been in the prison system is like that though. If someone wants social change, people need at least to be given help or opportunities to do so while incarcerated. Things like this aren't a "Club Med" atmosphere. There is no need to go overboard with bare minimums with regards to food, recreation, etc. but just because prisons have these things does not mean it can be compared to a trip to Passages Malibu.
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