The reason for prison

What gets me is how big a hole the US prison system is where money is thrown into it without any decent return on that investment save keeping the "bad guys" off the streets for a while. With the number of prisoners rising as fast as they are, more and more money is being spent to simply house them rather than help them. But I'll leave that for another time.

A prison should be concerned with making the inmate able to live a normal life once his term is up. Teach him basic skills so he can get a job, and more than register training so he can ask if you want fries with that. Clerical work, auto repair, public services, anything. Provide some therapy, no matter how little, so they can get to the root of why he commited his crime and how he can stop himself from doing it again. If the guy is going to be released and starts robbing the next day, was anything really accomplished?

It is a ridiculous concept that each inmate should get some time to be visited by a doctor, but I see no other means to help them overcome their problems. Even if the average term for an inmate is five years, if they go back to commiting crimes right after they get out, the prison system is still nothing but a revolving door.

Jam it back in, in the dark.