Decades of prison visiting as a volunteer here, plus having worked in one elsewhere.
Ah ha, I knew that I detected someone who knew the gut wrenching of lost souls.
Most of the prisoners I met were very uneducated or so far down on their luck they felt hopeless and didn't care anymore.
These people are targets for law enforcement and the legal system for two reasons in America.
The first is they know these people don't have the money to defend themselves with a good lawyer making for an easy conviction. $$$$$
In essence they are given a "public pretender" by the courts to represent them.
These lawyers get paid minimum (by the courts) so they don't put any effort into representing the victims.
The second reason is the prison system does not like violent criminals, they like non violent people like drug users/growers, back child support, etc.
This makes THEIR JOBS much easier and safer.
This makes for easy revenue and job security for the system. $$$$$
It's all about money and like jon said, NOTHING to do with rehabilitation as most come out of the joint much more hardcore then when they went in creating a repeat offender.
Being a lot of the prisons in America are 'privately owned and run' it has become BIG BUSINESS $$$$$ and that is why there are so many youth in prisons in America........they can't afford to defend themselves.
Is Poland like this also ?
Does Poland have privately owned prisons ?