Prisoner Reentry Quotes

The worst an ex-con is likely to do if given the right to vote is vote for a Democrat.

Why would anyone expect Tyson to come out smarter? He went to prison for four years, not Princeton.

I attended college in prison. I was in jail, so there ain't no going to no classes. They have programs in certain facilities where you can earn good time, and then you get time taken off your sentence. But as far as going to classes, it's not like that. You study, and then an administrator gives you a test. I got a Master's in psychology.

No funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons.

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.

To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.

I'm eternally grateful to the penal system in California for saving my life.

No one can say, 'I have dropped out - I am no longer in the system.' When you're in prison, you're even closer to the system: you feel it more, and you might be in there for whatever reason. You don't transform the system as an absolute thing.

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.

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

The status quo tough-on-crime policies of the '90s and 2000s are not working and are not popular. And it provides me with hope about the possibilities for San Francisco and this whole country in terms of moving away from our dependence on prisons and jails to solve social problems.

Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and desperation.

The way to reform has always led through prison.

When the power of private prisons is diminished, so, too, is their ability to engage in back-door political lobbying that has an impact on public and private prisons alike.

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

Trying to explain the First Step Act in prison reform in a tweet or Facebook post is not easy.

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.

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 wonder about prisoners. They're told, "You are free, you are innocent, you can go anywhere." I'm sure they usually feel nothing. They don't burst into tears or hysterics or joy or "I told you so." It's nothing. To be on the straight path isn't a bloody thing. It's just ordinary.

I'm involved in the work around prison rights in general.

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.

We keep a woman in prison for decade after decade at a cost of $60,000 a year, and then give them $200 when they hit the gates for release. And, adios. People have to get their IDs, Social Security cards. They have to get clothing, housing, apply for benefits and services, and it's impossible to do with 200 bucks.

Prisons are universities of the opposition.

One of the things about incarceration is that you're deprived. You lose all of your identity, and then its given back one day, and you're ill-equipped to actually embrace it and work it.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.