[OtterCoder]

What's so barbaric about insisting that rebels to the social contract learn how to work? Or demanding, even at metaphorical or literal gunpoint, that they work to support themselves, just as the rest of society must?

Now, I would like to say that this comment only applies to serious crimes. Murder, violence, kidnapping, theft. People who have proven that they cannot currently function in normal company. Labor and honest sweat can serve a great role in teaching a man the value and positive power of his hands, even if they were once bloody. In fact, you admit almost as much in the phrase "make their own sustainable living".

That said, the current system strays a little far from that script, for two reasons: overcriminalization and unregulated for-profit prisons. I have no problem with forcing a serious criminal to work, or work profitably, but a hard-working blue collar guy who was caught with drugs doesn't deserve to be forced through the same program that's designed to rehabilitate thieves! At the same time, the work they endure should be no more extraordinary, or less regulated, than what a person on the outside must do. The fruits of their labor should be mainly culled to offset the cost of their incarceration, just as most of our pay is taken by the bank and the landlord, but the wages should be fair, and saving some money should be allowed. The only option that should be denied them is laziness.