To your same point about empathy for prisoners- I have a similar point about how I think everyone should be arrested and booked overnight at least once in their life. People speak far too harshly and absolutely about “criminals” and how they behave in situations they have zero understanding of and support laws that uphold those institutions. Getting arrested changed me and my opinions on criminal Justice at a fundamental level. Having no control over your future in that environment, being stripped and searched, it makes you feel vulnerable in a way that nothing else does and I think the average person would come out of it with a drastically different base opinion of crime and punishment.

Note: I’m not advocating for violence or violent crime; I was arrested for an overdue traffic ticket and just that experience alone was absolute shit.