Main Points:

1. Inmates maintain work habits and make a contribution to their upkeep
2. Inmates can work their sentence off and reduce their term
3. A pool of labour is available to carry out tasks necessary to human sustainability such as recycling

Establish operations around low security prisons that enable inmates to contribute something towards society during their incarceration. The best kinds of operations are low skill static ones in which the work is fixed in one place and around which can be built a medium security facility A suitable such operation is recycling or waste management, much of which is currently subsidized/fully funded by local councils and which does not represent a goods or service that is going to compete with private enterprise.

The prison system is becoming increasingly expensive. Although it is still deemed appropriate to have a form of punishment that involves removal from society, it is probably becoming less appropriate for those people to remain idle during their incarceration.

A large number of prison inmates are low security, having committed white collar crime, or earned short term imprisonment for some minor misdemeanour.

Instead of parole, inmates can earn early release by completing a specified number of days of full employment in a prison factory where they live and work, and where their pay goes towards their upkeep and the maintenance of the prison.