Yes, they did when I retired in 2003. They also used to be able to get college degrees paid for by grants and tax payer dollars. When I first started, I was assigned to Auburn, which is a maximum security prison. Inmates there could get a 4-year degree from Syracuse University for free, while the rest of us would have given our eye-teeth to be able to send our kids there. Thank God George Pataki eliminated that program.
I respect your greater experience; and I realize that many people in prisons are incorrigible.
But there are also an awful lot who wound up there for relatively minor infractions; and some guilty of serious ones who are still truly capable of turning their lives around.
I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt that the way we handle incarceration for crimes really needs a revolution. For so many in our prisons, there is just degradation and demoralization; and very little to inspire and uplift a person into a new way of life.