the revolving door

This past week in class, we've been watching an episode about the US prison system and how so many people find themselves back behind bars once they've gone through them once. Sadly, the upper-middle class can find its way out of these situations, but the poor keep comin' back for more. I'm sure it's not the life they would choose for themselves or a lifestyle they would endure but I see it in a couple ways.
Some agents of socialization could be where they were raised and the life they had always known, because you and I both know that if we were living in the South Side of Chicago, we probably wouldn't consider going to college, costing our families 40 grand a year because that kind of money wouldn't even be available to us. What our day to day struggle would be there is much different than it is here.
In a sense, I feel like some of these people fall back into patterns of prison life because it's consistent; they get a bed to sleep in every night and food to eat three times a day. I don't necessarily agree with the US prison system, in fact I find it very unfair and after having read Courtroom 302, I have lessened respect for authority because of their reign in power. Before people are even convicted of a crime, they already tell them they have no chance at winning their case. I think in this respect too, people fall into the "revolving door" of prison. When constantly beat down and told that you will never amount to anything, a person begins to listen and sometimes they go down the wrong path.
It's too bad that the rehabilitation program that was shown in the Virginia prison isn't as prominent elsewhere, and I think that it would be useful if some of these "convicts" were shown a way out and taught that there is something more that they can do with their lives. Unfortunately American society has a long way to go in advancing its prison system and its enforcement in general.