The key to your comparison: 1973
How long ago was that? Could it be that the people who were young in 1973 might have learned something from the neglect of prisoners then?
Here's another date for you: 1974. That is the year that The Gulag Archipelago was published. This book made a major impact on our understanding of what political involvement and secrecy does to prisons in a nation. Is it too much to hope that we can take the lesson?
