I think (as non-american) that the best you can do is to try to convince your American friends (you may have to acquire them first) that the idea of the prison is not a punishment but isolation of the danger and reconditioning to the return back into the society.

My understanding is that the last one can not happen in open prisons but only in solitary confinement where a single prisoner does not have any contact with other prisoners but still has constant concealing by professionals and does have other conditions to maintain its decency.