We all know what's at the root of this: Slavery.

When we can get prisoners to work at meaningless tasks for pennies on the dollar...

In Norway, the prisoners do have jobs. Those jobs are designed to give them skills so that when they get out they can get a job. Stuff like repairing cars.

I'm also reminded of when my mother worked in a prison.

My mother was a theologian and a music teacher, but she often had assorted side hustles, all in the teaching field (for example, tutoring pregnant teenagers).

At one point one of them was teaching correspondence courses for the Bible school she went to (this was in the U.K., I'd note).

One of her students was, no exaggerating, a former organized crime thug. He was highly unlikely to ever be released. But he got his degree in theology (or Divinity) as it's called over there.

He told my mother about a program where she could really help short timers, and for several years she taught petty criminals...how to READ.

Yup. READ.

She stopped doing it after a bunch of prisoners took several people hostage and they put her through hostage training. Sadly, this triggered her claustrophobia and she decided she couldn't risk doing it any more.

But the prison literacy program demonstrably reduced recidivism. Dang hard to get a job if you can't read and write!

Educating prisoners, ultimately, saves society a lot of money. So many people are in jail because they resorted to survival crime.