According to prison critics and others, prisons are schools of crime. This viewpoint holds that when someone gets a prison sentence for a small crime, they will meet bigger criminals and build a social network among criminals. Secondly, the viewpoint asserts that when released from prison, regular elements of society do not wish to receive the person, whereas criminal networks do. These factors may then lead to recidivism.
Now of course there are other points of view, but my question is: what alternative systems to prison sentences have been proposed? For small and juvenile crimes, one alternative that has been proposed is forced labour (cleaning parks, etc.), but have any alternatives been proposed for serious, violent crimes, such as rape, armed robbery, and murder?