It is amazing to see prisoners especially prisoners from the west practicing meditation and benefit from it . Sometime ago, I read in either readers digest or national geographic about some westen prisoners who could not sleep well in prisons due to the poor conditions for many years, they slept well for 8 hours a day after they practice meditation. The prisoners themselves also found it amazing.
Hope that one day, they will not just learn meditation but also Buddha's teachings.
India prisons use yoga class. On news. Help to calm the prisoners a lot.
Some Indian prisons use Vipassana too. It was quite a success!
Buddha's teachings direct at our mind, so anyone in any walk of life or any religion can use it to increase their compassion and wisdom which will in turn bring them peace and happiness.
If the way we practise Buddhism increase our sense of differentiating, attaching to different labels and therefore making us feel different or better than other people, leading to more anger, self-righteousness, putting others down, arguments, fights and wars then the understanding must be somewhere wrong.