The kinds of folks I've worked with who have served time vary from place to place, but I'll give you a good rundown of some of the flavors I worked with when I did daylabor work in college and high school...

* People charged with something stupid (e.g. shoplifting) that turned into a larger problem (e.g. crossing state lines) which became an even larger problem (e.g. nonviolent, passive drug charges). One guy I worked with had lived on one side of the river in St. Lois but worked on the other side. Walmart decided that he'd "shoplifted" a $2 bottle of soda, legally he fled the state by going home, and his kid had hid a gram of weed in the shoebox by the door that nobody opened except of course the cops that flooded the house. He served 10 years after a plea deal that sunk his kid into juvie for 5 years.

* People who "did a crime" to prevent a crime. Another person I worked with shot his son 5 times in the chest after his son attempted to murder the wife. Because the only testimony they had was an asian woman who didn't speak great english and the court denied an interpreter for her native language (laoatian) because she "speaks good enough english", her description of the events was murky (having been asleep) and so he landed murder charges and a stint in prison.

* People who got racism'd into prison: Same work as the previous, the older latino guy in this group was framed for the death of a woman he spent the evening with; he had left after they hooked up and she ended up falling off the balcony of her apartment later on, but because time of death is like, +/- a few hours when it snows on top of you, he was the last one to see her. He spent 4 years in prison before he was released on a mistrial.

* Drug users of the nonviolent variety. Nose candy, heroin, weed, usually white collar or upper blue collar. Several folks like this, all who just wanted their past to be shoveled behind them.

* People who legitimately did a crime, did the time, and now they're out: Plenty of situations where legit crimes happened... Theft, assault, even a case of money laundering on occasion. They went in, did their time, and came out, and day labor was the one thing that didn't ask too many questions and paid regularly.

A fair number had degrees -- from associates and bachelor's degrees to even a PhD who was nailed for what the state called a "gambling ring" (some informal betting around the office that ended up snowballing into a massive pot). many of them could do remote work of some kind, be it customer support roles or tech work. The MBA that did nose candy? He stayed on the board of directors for a local nonprofit _while serving_ and would relay his comments through his lawyer, being entirely upfront as to why he was incarcerated, then ended up doing accounting for the day labor company after a while.

All this to say: our system is fucked up and needs rehabilitation systems for the murky area between those two extremes.