The whole US prison system is broken; private or not. They don’t want people to get better (recidivism rates) and justify it (along with the death penalty) with the denial that people can change. It’s rooted in their belief in free will, usually justified by religion through Christian nationalist ideals, and operates on this idea that says people can just choose to be shitty. The victims of that philosophy will buy into the illusion and ultimately believe it based off of nothing but confirmation bias.
If the core issue is complacency in archaic philosophies and ethics, how can we even change it? Spreading awareness of psychology seems to help, but only in making people aware of deterministic causes for human behavior. They still have this long held belief in an inherently moral soul/entity processing decisions from a metaphysical level that they tie to consciousness. It’s inflation of their ego if anything, and it justifies judging others based on arbitrary means. Scripture, prophecy, etc… We have the study of ethics for a reason people. Not to mention neuroscience and the use of the fMRI in psychological diagnoses getting us treatments (and programs like MK Ultra ) like Neurofeedback and (maybe cuz of the bilateral stim? I’m no expert; just an enthusiast)