Regular Correctional Facility vs. Spiderhead

In George Saunders', Escape from Spiderhead, the reader learns early on in the story that Jeff, the subject of a series of science experiments, had been committed a crime and was supposed to go to a regular containment facility but, Jeff's mother apparently paid a fortune to get Jeff into a facility like Spiderhead because she thought that Jeff would not last long in a regular prison. So, Spiderhead is a correctional facility but just a really weird one. The facility treats the subjects, it seems, in a nice manner, but when a subject is in an experiment, they can go through some very brutal and intense things. One girl almost killed herself due to "Darkenfloxx", one of the drugs Abnesti, the head scientist at Spiderhead, gaves to the subjects from time to time. The whole operation/punishment and rehabilitation seems very high tech and almost illegal.