State prisons are not a social service agency for inmates. Their main job is to enhance public safety by exerting tight control over people who have demonstrated that they are a danger to the law-abiding.

But it is also true that very few inmates will be in prison permanently. Most will be released sooner or later - often sooner than they should be. When that happens, it will benefit the public if those prisoners have at least been given the opportunity to acquire good work habits, if not a trade. And it can't hurt to remind them that they also have a stake in society.

With that in mind, we like the new program under which...