> And I maintain that your reply was indeed a strawman, because it was not at all answering to the point I raised, no matter how you look at it

No matter how you look at it. When I first read your sentence, I unintentionally read what you said differently than what you intended. If ambiguity in language allows for many interpretations of a statement, responding to one instead of the other is not a strawman.

Again, regardless, the purpose of my question was not about what prison was originally intended to be but instead what it's purpose should be.