Barack Obama Quotes

Trying to solve the crime problem by building more prison cells is like trying to solve the problem of AIDS by building more hospitals.

Incarceration is supposed to keep the community safe from your behavior.

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.

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.

Think about how much it costs to incarcerate someone. Do we want them just sitting in prison, lifting weights, becoming violent and thinking about the next crime? Or do we want them having a little purpose in life and learning a skill?

Prisons are universities of the opposition.

The United States imprisons many non-violent offenders who could instead be required to pay fines, perform community service, and make restitution to their victims… Maintaining our vast network of prisons consumes resources that could be better spent on education and other crime prevention efforts... Rather than reforming offenders, prison too often degrades and dehumanizes prisoners, making the task of rehabilitation and reentry into society even more difficult.

Too many states spend more money on prisons than on higher education.

The regime in too many prisons is one of idleness, and locking up someone from such a background in idleness virtually guarantees re-offending. Instead there needs to be a full day's work every weekday in either the workshops or the education department or preferably a mixture of both.

Given the devastation that crime can visit on families and communities, I will err on being a little too tough on crime than being too soft on crime.

I would make the case that the vast majority of prisoners leave prison and go back into society. We share that society with them and what sort of people do we want them to be.

You will feel the full force of the law and if you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishments. And to these people I would say this: you are not only wrecking the lives of others, you are potentially wrecking your own life too.

Unfortunately, the elimination of incentives such as parole, good time credits and funding for college courses, means that fewer inmates participate in and excel in literacy, education, treatment and other development programs.

America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.

Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.

I get a lot of calls from families and people who have served time and they say, 'Thank you, Sheriff. I hate the tents.' That's music to my ears.

I believe, and I may be wrong, the system sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Prison is supposed to rehabilitate, but they don't do that in a lot of cases.

Place all prisons near a high-road, where the suffering and disfigured offenders can be seen

I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.

Mandatory prison terms is easy to say, but where are we going to put people?

I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released.

Incarceration begets more incarceration, and incarceration also begets more crime, which in turn invites more aggressive enforcement, which then re-supplies incarceration …

The prison is the state writ small.