The genuine purpose of all US prisons, private and public, are exploitation not rehabilitation. It's slave labor either way, not just with private
By far, though, most prisoners work menial jobs simply maintaining the lockups that hold them: “More than 95 percent of public prisons and nearly 90 percent of private prisons have work programs that employ incarcerated people to support and maintain” the prisons that cage them, the ACLU/UCLS report noted. Government is the biggest beneficiary of prison slave labor. Prisoners produce over $2 billion in goods and perform $9 billion worth of prison support and maintenance—all of which goes to the state at next to no cost. Of the prisoners surveyed for the report, about 80% were in those facility-support jobs, with 30% working janitorial positions and 20% in food preparation.
Check the financial records and social networks of the investors and managers of that prison and put them in jail as soon as any anomalies are found. It should fill up quickly enough.
Convert it to a homeless shelter then. Rip out the bars and put real walls and doors in. Get rid of the toilet next to the bed and install restaurant style bathrooms. Renovate a few areas to accommodate couples and families. Retain the guards and hire mental health and job counselors.
This inspired me to look up modern prison cells, and a lot, but not all, actually have walls instead of bars. I think the doors are the biggest thing that would need to be replaced. I like this idea, if it can ever be implemented.
Prisons are designed to be dehumanizing and the renovations would need to address that. The examples I have is just a short list. There would also need to be a bit of utilitarianism involved because a family unit has a higher need for space and privacy that a single occupant does.
Idaho has an incarceration rate of 720 (including prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice facilities), meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than any independent democratic country on earth
The people of Idaho taint an otherwise absolute gem of American Natural beauty.
We should make a treaty with them and put them all in some shittier place. And then force their children into cultural indoctrination schools so they know "how to be."