Getting over on someone seems more and more prevalent these days. I swear businesses weren't as bad about these things in the 80's and 90's,maybe it's rose-colored glasses and all that jazz.
But not all of it need be paid. If I take an intern along to a job that I could’ve done in the same time alone, but I let the intern do the work and supervise them on how to do it, that needn’t be paid because the intern is not providing value, they are just getting training.
The loudest voices are often the most removed. Watching people in privileged positions immediately infer solutions about things that rarely impact their lives is like watching Madonna give an Aretha Franklin tribute. At the end of the day, it's self-interested. Bringing attention to the matter is definitely important and a worthy cause for sure, but approaching complex problems with unambiguous solutions without much interaction with those actually impacted is not substantively furthering the cause. What seems like a viable conjecture actually becomes using a hammer to pound in a screw. There are big qualitative and empathetic parts in figuring out a strategy that aren't covered in the headlines about prison or published crime statistics.
Many times the people complaining are privileged elites who are inferring what these populations want, but I would caution them to not make assumptions and do their research. It is not unambiguously bad to do this.
We can talk about the long-term reforms of prison, but there are short-term concerns too that might be helpful to them.