Quotes About Incarceration

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.

I spent 11 years in isolation units, solitary confinement... in the hardest places for women.

Prison has a universal fascination. It's a real-life horror story because, given the right set of circumstances, anyone could find themselves behind bars.

We can agree that keeping serious criminals in prison is an effective means of preserving public safety, but we must also recognize that the axiom of 'putting people in jail and throwing away the key' does not apply to all offenders universally and can actually be counterproductive.

Once they are charged, too many poor New Yorkers find themselves trapped by our unjust bail system. Unable to pay for bail, they languish in Rikers Island or other jails while they await trial, regardless of guilt.

The United States has more women and girls in prison than any other industrialized nation on earth.

While incarcerated, I had no bank statements, no bills, no credit history. In our interconnected world of big data, I appeared to be no different than a deceased person.

In this country, we force millions of people - who are largely black and brown - into a permanent second-class status simply because they once committed a crime.

I felt very accomplished staying busy in prison.

Another thing this spokesman tells me is that more Kansans need to go to jail. In Kansas, he says, the "rate of incarceration went up forty-four percent in the nineties. In the rest of the nation, it went up 71.7 percent. So we are not putting people in jail" at the same rate as other states.

James James Jameson – his real name – who had escaped state prison

He even assembled coops for poultry, not unaware of the irony that he was a prisoner building a prison for lesser creatures.

When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded. If anything, the needs for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment.

There are a lot of gay transvestites who have been in jail for no reason at all.

Jail ain't for nobody.

We need to notice and be aware of the injustices embedded in our criminal system.

Sometimes, we get numb to the fact that people get sent away. We don't see where they are; we say they are 'doing time,' and you really don't know what that is.

You could easily do away with a lot of jails. They're shit. They breed, they don't deter, crime.

Naw. Just us old country niggers. We kind of make it a point to call things for what they is. I'd hate to guess how many names they is for the jailhouse. I'd hate to have to count em.

They didn't allow kids in the visiting area, which was funny. It was funny because if I wasn't locked up, I wouldn't be allowed to come into the visiting room.

treat you like a criminal," he said, showing a slide of an inmate in striped prison garb. Then a slide of Bob Dylan came on the screen. "People want to own the music they love.

Three-quarters of dads who were in South Carolina jails for being behind in child support payments suffer from extreme poverty. And one-eighth of all South Carolina inmates are in jail for being behind in child support payments. No dad is imprisoned for not spending enough time with his children. And it is rare for a mom to go to jail for preventing dad from spending enough time with his children.

I've never cared for humming verse But what to do inside a jail? I'll hum some verse to pass long days I'll hum and wait till freedom comes.

The degree to which a society is civilized can be judged by entering its prisons.