Inmate Rehabilitation Quotes

President Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison yesterday. Obama said it was a good chance to talk about prison reform, and to catch up with so many former congressmen.

The prison, above all others, should be the most human of institutions.

I feel like it had an impact, in that it started the attention that has been paid to what was happening. It started to get us into this whole conversation about prison reform, the whole bipartisan dialogue that's been happening over the past five, six years about this, where you have a Van Jones and a Newt Gingrich, and you have the Rick Perrys and so forth getting up and talking about the need to reform.

PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.

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.

I knew we could improve our lives even in jail. We could come out as different men, and we could even come out with two degrees. Educating ourselves was a way to give ourselves the most powerful weapon for freedom.

Since the late 1970's, the main focus of prisons has been punishment, not rehabilitation. It's hard to believe, but you would be hard-pressed to find a meaningful violence-prevention class in a federal or state penitentiary. And 'we the people' are footing the bill to keep these folks imprisoned. It costs on average $46,000 a year to keep an adult incarcerated in California and about the same for New York State.

We need to have more second chance programs. I'm glad that we're ending private prisons in the federal system; I want to see them ended in the state system.

When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both.

I don't even think jail helps Gucci Mane. It clearly doesn't.

Our prisons and our jails are now our mental health institutions.

While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.

They [prisons] are not designed to rehabilitate the - the inmate, though the, the public propaganda is that this is their function.

When I was in the penitentiary after being accused of killing a policeman, I was more in the system in the penitentiary than ever.

How come life in prison doesn't mean life? Until it does, we're not ready to do away with the death penalty. Stop thinking in terms of "punishment" for a minute and think in terms of safeguarding innocent people from incorrigible murderers.

A feeling of self worth is the best accomplishment we can foster in our prisons.

Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.

There's definitely a way to fix the prison system. First of all, you gotta get a rehabilitation center in prisons, that every inmate must go through.

Apparently, I'm very, very popular in jails. They often ask me to come and speak.

The problem with Georgia prisons was the poor quality of the inmates.

Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate.

I needed a place to put the dogs. The prisoners ruined the jail, so I put the prisoners in the tents and I had a nice place to put the dogs. We treat the cats nice too, and horses. I have the inmates take care of the animals. It's therapy too, you see.

Little information is published on prisons, it is one of the hidden regions of our social system, one of the dark zones of our life.

I think it's very important. I've gone into prisons to meditate with inmates. It's something I plan to do with Tim Robbins soon.

In Puppies Behind Bars, when the puppy is eight weeks old it is given to an inmate. The inmate is responsible for the dog.