he probably went in as a true believer in the justice system and needed a lot of proof the break down the decades of propoganda that he grew up with. he might have thought prisons were for evil criminals that deserved to be there. he might have thought criminals are inherently dumb and that he could educate them on how easy and good it is to be good. a lot of cops and prison workers believe all this shit whole hearted and are too dumb to ever have another thought about it.

many of them just base their lives on a religious "authority is moral and just" style of beliefs and think it's inherently morally wrong to question the rules. the authorities (their preachers and politicians) tell them these things, so to talk back against that would be sinful. even just thinking about how they might be wrong is sinful.

figuring out that the penal system that your core belief system always told you was right and good is actualy a tool of oppresion is simply too much for most of them. it's not a simple matter of logic, it's an assault on their very reality. to them the world is defined by the word of others. they don't ever have to wonder if something is right or wrong, they have authority figures to do that for them. to tell them that said authority figure is wrong is to tell them that they can't trust that up is up or down is down. it's also how they feel no cognitive dissonance when doing things that their religion would say are wrong. the Bible and other Abrahamic texts are very clear that God's plan is mysterious and unkowable. they're also inherently vague and open to interpretation. Christian specifically are largely discouraged from deriving their own enterpretations from the texts. they don't base their beliefs on the Bible, they base them on doing what they're told. they do what God tells them, but most people can't hear God so they do what the priest tells them. the priest tells them what politics and politicians are right because one side wants to pander to the church. so in their mind God talks through the priest to say that Donald trump and his ilk are just and good and godly. don't worry about what they say or do, just trust that they will bring God's will to America.

oppresing poor and brown people with the prison system is a primary goal of these politicians. their followers often believe that they are right with literal religious zeal. this guy probably had to have his entire world shattered before he could believe this.

that or he believed it the whole time and is just using the time he spent there to lend weight to his argument. or maybe something else entirely. idk, i made a lot of assumptions there.

I’m just glad they got there!

He didn't say he was a good or intellectual teacher... but like the bottom of the graduating class, they got there eventually