Prison Reform Quotes

Non-custodial sentences are certainly something to look at, more support in the community rather than within prisons is something we have to look at. There will of course still be women who need to be in prison, serious offenders, but I think there is scope to look at that number and I think that number could come down.

No penal or political system which multiplies the population of the prisons at the rate of 10 per cent every year will solve a problem which is growing to be more and more of a danger to the social and moral life of the nation.

I've been involved in activities with other people who were put in jail. We were protesting the closing of the prison farm program at the prison I used in a previous book, Alias Grace. Some of us also put up money in order to save the heirloom herd of cows there. So I own half a cow!

I'm not in favor of the death penalty. But I'm in favor of locking these people away in maximum security units where they can never get out. They can never escape. They can never be paroled. Lock the bad ones away. But you gotta rethink everybody else.

For some people, their idea of getting tough is longer suspended sentences.

It would serve the Americans right if we emptied the prisons and let the subversives take power. They'd soon show Washington just how much they appreciate good old American values.

If people are being upstanding citizens of the Republic, then you have to widen the net to incarcerate them. This explains why America's prisons are full of nonviolent offenders - a perfect example of American exceptionalism.

Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.

A reform in the system of criminal jurisprudence, by which the death penalty shall no longer be inflicted; and by which, during that term, a portion of the prison employment shall be for, and the product thereof be faithfully paid over to, the support of the criminal’s family; and by which our so-called prisons shall be virtually transformed into vast reformatory workshops, from which the unfortunate may emerge to be useful members of society, instead of the alienated citizens they now are.

Dwayne Betts is the kind of man who should be receiving awards from the Connecticut bar. Instead, he hasn't been admitted.

Every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.

If we have to build more prisons, it means we have failed.

Should someone go to jail for just doing drugs? I believe the time has come for that to end.

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.

These men who come out of prison have offended against society, they cannot expect that society will immediately forget their offense. On the other hand, for its own protection, society would do well to make it possible at least for such men and women as really wish to go straight, to go straight …. I wish that every community from which individuals go to prison might have an organization which would be notified when they are returned to society. It would then be this organization's responsibility to find these individuals a job, suited to their capacities and training, which would bring them a decent living. At the same time some one person beside the parole officer who has a few hundred people to look after, should be responsible for helping these men, and women too, to adjust back to their environment. They must begin to do things for others and to be useful outside of their actual work, or they will not feel themselves anchored permanently to their good intentions.

No one wants dangerous criminals in our communities.

Too many Americans are going to too many prisons for far too long.

Prison works.

I think one of the things that I don't think people focus on is that there are some red states that have done some really innovative things when it comes to criminal justice reform, including on rehabilitation, reentry efforts. I think one of the things that we have seen in that regard is that you save money.

We must renew our efforts to keep our communities safe, from the dangers of terrorists from foreign lands and from common criminals here at home. Let no criminal believe that tough fiscal times will yield an open cell door and a ticket to freedom.

Sometimes going to jail is just the price you have to pay for social reform or social change.

Mass incarceration is the result of small, distinct steps, each of whose significance becomes more apparent over time, and only when considered in light of later events.

At the age of 46, in my sixth prison term, it was the second prison I was in - California Rehabilitation Center. The California Civil Education program kind of opened up all of the experiences that that I had dealt with in my life, that I had experienced.

Eddie Conway is central to my first memories. My parents used to take me to, when it was open, the Baltimore city penitentiary to see Eddie Conway - I was talking to my dad about this recently - from the time I might have been one or two years old. I mean, literally, my first memories are of black men in jail, specifically of Eddie Conway.

Yeah, I've gotten a few letters from prison.