Virginia

... instead of spending the median $65,000 (prison) or $45,00 (county jail) a year to house them - how about spending a lot less than that to rehabilitate him and get him on track?

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-do-states-spend-on-prisons/

https://www.pewtrusts.org › en › research-and-analysis › issue-briefs › 2021 › 01 › local-spending-on-jails-tops-$25-billion-in-latest-nationwide-data
Local Spending on Jails Tops $25 Billion in Latest Nationwide Data
As of the end of 2017: Jail and other local corrections costs had risen sixfold since 1977, with jail costs reaching $25 billion. Almost 2 in 5 dollars spent on state and local correctional institutions went to jails. About 1 in 17 county dollars was spent on jails. The average annual cost of holding a person in jail was (Pew doesn't seem to want anyone using the link except from the search engine. The article exists, search: yearly cost of jailing an inmate.)

(this is about local jails, not even prisons.)

And for a kicker: get corporations out of the prison management business. They have no financial interest in crime reduction when they pay local authorities a bounty for each person they jail.