The likely outcome of such a system would be for the for-profit prisons to hire lawyers to get their past "clients" off on technicalities.
How about creating a system where we help people who have been to prison to avoid going there again - say training them for good jobs and treating them like human beings when in jail so they treat others the same way when they get out?
I once had a good friend who told me he was unemployable because he was a felon. I don't know what he did but it must have been bad.
I suggested that he learn to write code then hang out his shingle as a self-employed consultant.
It turned out that he was already quite a good computer programmer as he was taught how while in prison. But even so he refused to consider self-employment because he was so down on himself.
While there are many reasons to pursue self-employment, among them is that one cannot find paying work any other way.
The reason prisons are commonly called "Penitentiaries" or "Correctional Institutes" is that they are not intended for punishment but to set their inmates onto a righteous path.
At least that was the stated intention at one time.
You don't have to something super bad to be labelled a felon. Simple drug possession, not selling but being caught with certain drugs or a certain amount, will result in felony charges. In fact, a majority of felons in Federal prisons are drug related, though that percentage is much lower in State prisons, where there are more violent offenders.
Unfortunately prisons (and society in general) seem to not be too interested in helping prisoners avoid repeating their past errors. Leaving aside morals, vengeance is not an intelligent way of running prisons if you are going to let people out.
How about creating a system where we help people who have been to prison to avoid going there again - say training them for good jobs and treating them like human beings when in jail so they treat others the same way when they get out?