That's ridiculous. I guess it's all relative, countries with harsher living conditions are going to have harsher prisons. The Scandinavian countries have the least harsh prisons, yet they have the lowest recidivism rate. The US has the most prisoners, yet every day men are released after serving 15-20 years, because they were found innocent of the crimes they had been convicted of decades ago. Should prison conditions be harsher knowing hundreds, if not thousands of innocent men are behind bars?