California's prison system troubles

It seems like California has too many people in the prisons. This is not only true of California but most other states in the US. For every little thing people want to send people to prisons. Can we afford such a system that we are getting. First thing there will be debtor prisons too. There has to be a way (computer systems) that people after a certain amount of time that prison records need to be erased. But just think if we went back to old school systems with very high levels in grade schools and a certain amount of corporal punishment in grade school intead of way our grade schools are operated then young people would grow up to be good adults. I really think our public school system with the type of educators that we have in our school system(or should I have so call educators with their psycology back ground etc ) is actually helping to fill our prisons with the people that are coming out of grade school not being prepared for adulthool and or high school and colleges. I really wonder if we poured money into a different type of schools and set real standards -- it is hard to prove but I think this would help our people from doing things that set them to go to prison. It might even be better if we set up our prisons as real teaching units instead of places to put wild animals or as so many of the prisoners become. Even when people come from prisons - the law will not let them or they set up so many rules against them that most of them seem to wind back up in prisons and get worse. Many of these people are not dumb individuals and there is a need for to be able to use for this country.