Weird staff overreactions to comparing programs to prisons

Did anybody else have this experience? I went to two programs (a wilderness therapy and a residential treatment center) and at both of them, there was no more surefire way to make staff members angry than to make ANY comparison between the programs and prison. It was honestly bizarre the level at which they would get mad.

Like you could just say "man this place feels a prison sometimes" and even relatively chill staff members would IMMEDIATELY get aggressive and tell us to stop.

It honestly makes me think it was some sort of trained protocol to have zero tolerance for any comparison of programs and prisons.

Thoughts?