"Are Prisons Obsolete" is a great critique of modern U.S. prisons, but it doesn't offer much in the way of alternate ideas on how to handle crime. As I recall, it also doesn't look at foreign prisons that radically change what imprisonment looks like:

"This is like living in a holiday camp," Mikko*, a prisoner at Ojoinen open prison near the city of Hämeenlinna, told Yle News.

Mikko's view is pretty common, and it's not without foundation. Prisoners in the Nordic country get their own rooms, access to plenty of recreation and are transferred to open prisons quickly to prepare for their release...

Once the working day is over and the evening meal has been eaten and cleared away, the prisoners are free to spend their time as they wish. There are exercise areas, television rooms and many prisoners have video game consoles in their cells. Mikko, who served the first part of his sentence at a closed prison, welcomes the freedom of choice and movement that he enjoys at Ojoinen -- and the wider atmosphere it creates -- compared to his earlier prison experience...

"It is hard to argue that open prison systems don’t work," says Tyni. "You can consider the system as a progressive system where a prisoner starts his or her sentence in a closed prison, moves later into an open prison, continues to electronic monitoring out in society and lastly to parole. It is a step-by-step process based on an individual sentence plan."

Critiquing the current system is good, but it's not enough. It has to be accompanied by ideas on how to do things better.