policymakers trying on different lives.

Do you think people in government could be demanded to try out different lives..? I was thinking of setting up training courses (they probably already have them under different names) for decision makes to feel the impact of their decisions. (I'm also thinking of the anonimity that famous people in the west enjoy in developing countries - trying on normal lives). 

So policy makers on prison reform would have to spend some time in prison as work experience in order to be sufficiently qualified to be offered a new post. That way they would be forced to think of their decisions in a human (as well as logical) way. I'm thinking George Orwell's down & out in Paris being an advocate of homelessness.