1. There Are No Rich People in Jail.

This includes the staff as well as the inmates.  A jail is a community that is both dysfunctional and secure.  The staff knows very well that no matter what effort is made in the area of rehabilitation, nowhere near enough money is appropriated to the effort to be effective: whether in staff pay, number of staff, inmate support, parole and probation support, infrastructure, anything at all.  

The rich people are in the courtroom.  Not everyone, of course, but certainly the district attorneys and judges, as well as some defense lawyers.  The laws as they stand are questionable and variable from state to state. The punishments applied, however, are far worse: capriciously given out and very often politically motivated to make the principals appear “tough on crime” or “safety conscious.”  In reality, all the state and municipal lawyers and judges merely want to get re-elected. They have no idea and no particular concern for the prison society, either the guards or the inmates, particularly upon an inmate’s release.

Many realize that this “system” is “broken” but no one wants to investigate where the breakage has taken place.  When a (poor) inmate is taken out of his community and family without rehabilitation, often “out-sourced” to an prison out-of-state or out-of-region, his support network is broken.  Upon serving his or her sentence, release with no functional support regarding work or housing—let alone highly variable and erratic training and education whilst in prison—places the parolee in the dubious position of having no civil rights and little access to jobs that can support him or herself, let alone his or her family, it is hardly surprising that recidivism is as high as it is.  Add the lure, in the face of no job and no way to support self or family, of illegal activity—especially in drug trafficking—to break out of the enforced poverty and/or escape the reality of this predicament and the circularity of crime-prison-release-crime makes perfect sense.