"Oh, awright. You eat regular, an’ get clean clothes, and there’s places to take a bath. It’s pretty nice some ways. Makes it hard not havin’ no women…They was a guy paroled," he said. "’Bout a month he’s back for breakin’ parole. A guy ast him why he bust this parole. ‘Well, hell,’ he says. ‘They got no conveniences at my old man’s place. Got no ‘lectric lights, got no shower baths. There ain’t no books, an’ the food’s lousy.’"
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Tom Joad tells Casy about life in prison, which he describes as "pretty nice." So bad is life for the poor during the Great Depression, that Joad tells of one prisoner who breaks his parole to get back to prison. Conditions were better in prison than in his family home. There is irony in the fact that men commit crimes deliberately just to come back to prison.