Quotes About Reform

If England treats her criminals the way she has treated me, she doesn't deserve to have any.

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly, I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, that it's rather hard to tell which of us ought to reform the rest of us.

Reform is born of need, not pity.

An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. I suppose it is a philanthropic movement to try to reverse the process.

You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.

Before I was governor, tuition was skyrocketing, and we stopped that. We capped and then we froze college tuition.

The appointment of judges to the higher judiciary cannot be the sole domain of a few members of the higher judiciary. This turf must be shared.

In the face of a rising China, along with authoritarian regimes from Brazil to the Philippines to Turkey to Russia, and the constant presence of belligerent non-state actors, we need to reform our military to deal with asymmetrical threats.

The most important problem that Turkey has is education.

We invite our friends who hold high positions in the legislative branch of government and state institutions to master the skills of administration, so they could, when the time comes, reform the Turkish state and make it more fruitful at all its levels in the name of Islam.

We must make a radical turn, at 360 degrees.

Through his deferential yet decidedly determined demeanor, Pope Francis is not only setting a superior spiritual standard, but he is also leading a thorough transformation of the Catholic Church - rivaling any brand revitalization or corporate turnaround you could name.

I think the system is broken; most people think that it's broken. And we think that what we're going to do is invigorate the political system and allow for this country to be turned around.

The earmark favor factory needs to be boarded up and demolished, not turned over to new management that may or may not have a better eye for earmarks with 'merit.'

I believe this system of mass incarceration would have Dr. King turning in his grave. There's no doubt in my mind that Dr. King would be doing everything in his power to build a movement to end mass incarceration in the United States; a movement for education, not incarceration.

I always think that reforms and turning China into a free country is a long and tortuous process. Despite this, in a totalitarian state, the fight for freedom comes from the accumulative efforts of the people; without such efforts, very little will happen.

Without turning prison life into something more meaningful, prisoners are more likely to reoffend.

Do what is best for most people, not just a few. Prevent your elites and growing middle class, those who often benefit most from growth and development, from turning into a special interests group that blocks reforms.

Offenders who commit crime in prison have a disruptive and often devastating impact on the prospects of those who are trying to turn their lives around and who see prison as a pivotal turning point in their lives.

It turns out that in the federal government, there are a lot of innovators.

One of the things about jail that's weird is that you're sent to a place where you're supposed to sit there and think about your actions and their consequences and why you're there. And I think now, it turns more into - the minute you go there, it's just survival.