Angela Davis Quotes

When you're in prison, the progress of the outside world doesn't necessarily translate inside prison walls. You don't have any rights; it just doesn't progress along the same timeline.

Unless we address those that are leaving prisons, we can't begin to repair the damage of mass incarceration and make our communities whole and healthy once again.

People bring up Willie Horton or some other political bombshell in the past, but what they're not being intellectually honest about is if we do not work on early release, if we do not rehabilitate 95 percent of the people who go into the prison system and come out, far more innocent people are going to be harmed.

I'm a prison abolitionist because the prison system as it is set up is just not working. It's horrible.

I have never articulated a specific number, but I think a nation as great as we are, that professes to favor freedom and liberty, that we would find a way to evidence that in our criminal justice system by achieving what we know we can achieve: a reduction in crime, a reduction in taxpayer expense, and a reduction in the prison population.

I'd like to continue being involved with issues that animated my time as attorney general - criminal-justice reform and civil rights especially. I don't just want to give speeches; I'd like to involve myself in this work in a systematic way.

Private-sector firms are increasingly active in the prison industry and they and the militantly unionized correctional officers, almost all unskilled labor, constantly lead public demands for more criminal statutes and more draconian penalties.

It would be like the films I've seen where wardens would decide to be in a jail cell for a week, to get a sense of what it would be like to be a prisoner.

Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.

I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

I do a number of things working on human rights issues, prison recidivism rates, and then I also push and have worked a lot on the social issues of rebuilding the family.

I am happy that the urgency to reform our broken criminal justice system has found allies all across the political spectrum.

The first visit I made to Australia was in 1996 when I was the prisons' minister and was looking at other countries' penal systems.

Every politician should go and spend time and visit prisons and jails. Because if you are choosing to exercise this kind of power over another person's life, there's a role for that, but you have to know the kind of power you are exercising.

I've never been incarcerated; I don't deal with these things on a day-to-day basis in my own personal life, but I have family members that do. I have friends that do. I have people in the city that I live in, Philadelphia, that are dealing with this on a daily basis.

I think any time you're able to humanize the plight of the wrongfully incarcerated, then you're doing your job.

I believe prisons have emerged as a new frontline in the fight against crime. The fact is, new technology and sophisticated approaches mean that prison walls alone are no longer effective in stopping crime – inside or outside of prison.

A lot of the best of what's come from working on 'Orange Is the New Black' is working with the Women's Prison Association and kind of getting to see firsthand what they do for incarcerated women.

Everybody knows that prison is not a good place for anyone, and nobody would feel proud to be there. But I'd like to mention that I was treated really well in there.

One of the things I love about 'Orange' is I think we bring to light a lot of topics that, particularly in terms of prison, might go untalked about.

At least 80 percent of American prisoners are grossly over-sentenced. The Supreme Court knows this, but shows scant concern for this human side of criminal justice.

America has the longest prison sentences in the West, yet the only condition long sentences demonstrably cure is heterosexuality.

I know what it's like to be ignored, and I think that is the big problem about the prison system: These people are being thrown away. There is no sense of rehabilitation. In some places, they are trying to do things. But, in most cases, it's a holding cell.

As soon as I ended up being incarcerated, I said, you know, this is not the life for me.

I used to teach acting in a maximum security men's prison. I worked with guys with the most dysfunctional behavior problems. I probably learned more there than from my prestigious theater degree.