I could see a system where prisoners have effectively full time jobs in prison 6 days a week, and apart from being restricted to their grounds and a cell at night are relatively free. Up at 6.30, breakfast at 7.30, start work at 8 till 8 with a one hour lunch break. Harsh? I hope so! But everyone is kept busy, and some of the work could help subsidise their incarceration.

But what to do with the real hard core scum? The ones that break all the rules however hard or soft they are? Locking them up for the rest of their natural life is one way, but what about a stint in the armed forces? Penal Legions. That would knock some discipline into them.

rehabilitatio also requires the inmates to support it. After all, the main blue collar criminals probably have been failing for a decade and more before they get locked up. School is expensive the first time around. Should society be drained of enough money to try to get them to learn the second or third time?