Re-establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps could help reduce prison population of non-violent offenders, establish a corps of labor, and teach marketable skills to workers,
Prisoners held on drug charges, male and female, could be 'sentenced' to the Corps camps. Instead of spending money building human warehouses, that money could be used to set up the camps and to pay the workers minimum wage. A percentage of their earned income would revert to their families-to parents or to spouse/children. This may even reduce the number of people receiving government assistance. Those persons in the program would learn marketable skills while repairing the eroding infrastructure. The CCC worked in the early 20th century and there is no reason it cannot work in the early 21st.