Sure, learning how to be still and focus the mind could be useful, and I too often had a good time in my early cult days.
But it's still a cult, and Rawat is still a manipulative asshole as you put it. So yeah, perhaps make meditation classes available to those interested, but I wouldn't let a manipulative asshole anywhere near those classes.
After many years of privatising prisons in the UK, conditions inside are dire, with massive staff shortages and difficulty providing the most basic services. So I get it that some dodgy outfit can volunteer to offer meditation classes and get a free pass. Anybody holding something paddle shaped is welcome up shit creek.
What would be much more useful to prisoners in the long run and to society would be to once again have prisons run by the state, recognising that prisons are a basic necessity, and that how they are run is far more important than simply farming them out to the company that offers to run them at the lowest price.
Besides that, I question the link between the benefits you personally have described and Rawat. Rawat spent very little of his time with us teaching us how to meditate (what's to teach - there's really not that much to say about quieting yourself down) and much more time undermining the values most people take for granted (family, career, a sense of purpose in life).
I too have had profound experiences meditating, but I don't do it any more. Just a bit, as I lie back in the dentist's chair is all. I have learned to focus and be calm(er) in tricky circumstances, and to step back and take in a bigger perspective than chasing the nearest craving. I learned too from being a member of a large group of mostly accommodating people. And I learned from chasing Rawat around the world to the extent of often being totally broke, no food, no accommodation, sleeping rough.
But mostly I think I learned because time passed, stuff happened, and I grew up, like we all did.
Despite the fact that some of us learned some stuff and some had some good times, I think Rawat did a lot more harm than good, and I don't think the argument that some prisoners might benefit from his videos is good enough.
