Quotes About Inmates

Prisons are universities of crime, maintained by the state.

What Höss rationalised as hate for the enemies of the state might be better described as a sense of power and contempt for the inmates fostered in the guards by the camp system.

According to the California Penal Code, prisoners have the legal right to marry. The prison approved Richard's marriage, and his and Doreen's names were added to the list of ten inmates marrying that day, three from death row. It was quickly pointed out to a curious journalist by San Quentin's public relations department that prisoners on death row do not have the right to conjugal visits.

During the course of Sean's stay in the jail, Ramirez asked Penn for his autograph. Sean wrote: Dear Richard: It's impossible to be incarcerated and not feel a kinship with your fellow inmates. Well, Richard, I've done the impossible. I feel absolutely no kinship with you. Sean Penn

It might interest you to know,' she said, 'that many of Josef Kahn's fellow inmates at the Herzeberge Asylum are those whose organic dementia is a direct result of their syphilis. Contradictory statements can be made and accepted. The mood varies between euphoria and apathy, and there is general emotional instability. The classic type is characterized by a demented euphoria, delusions of grandeur and bouts of extreme paranoia.

the inmates keep their distance and do what inmates always seem to do: affirm and reassure, make the future seem doable.

It doesn't matter what color you are. Poverty is poverty. Inmates come from all walks of life. We have to make sure we look out for these people and give them a chance.

During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me. Remarkably, according to what they told me, nearly every inmate in the prison didn't do it. Several thousand people had been locked up unjustly and, by an incredible coincidence, all in the same prison. On the other hand, they knew an awful lot about how to knife somebody.

Eighty percent of custodial suicides are achieved by hanging. Prison inmates are seven times more likely to kill themselves than the general population.

Toddlers are like the worst inmates. When they're not lying to your face and tearing up your shit, they're napping, pooping, or trying to think of different ways to fuck with you.

At any given time in the U.S. penal system, at least half the inmate population have been diagnosed with some kind of mental illness.

On television I feel like a man playing piano in a brothel; every now and again he solaces himself by playing 'Abide with Me' in the hope of edifying both the clients and the inmates

A vacant mind invites dangerous inmates as a deserted mansion tempts wandering outcasts to enter and take up their abode in its desolate apartments.

Built in 1975, the Division Four unit is, like Henry Horner, made of cinder block, which jail authorities quickly learned did not provide the best of security. Because prisoners scraped through the mortar with metal spoons, the jail switched to plastic utensils in 1979. And after several inmates used the top of their dressers to beat through the walls, some in as little time as a minute and a half, the dressers were finally removed in 1981.

Shouldn't one of the goals of prison be getting as many of the inmates as possible back out into the world to be responsible citizens? Aren't we just wasting generations of human potential by keeping over two million people behind bars?

The window is the reason the death row inmates go to the visiting room to see their lawyers and investigators. The lawyers think their clients want to see them. No, they want to see the window.

Ritzonia" was the epithet coined by Bernard Bernson, who sold Italian pictures to American millionaires, to describe the unreal, mortifying sameness of their luxury. "Ritzonia," he wrote in 1909, "carries its inmates like a wishing carpet from place to place, the same people, the same meals, the same music. Within its walls you might be at Peking or Prague or Paris or London and you would never know where.

I think he's telling the truth," she said. "Like prison inmates have grapevines that keep them informed about what's happening on the outside, these kids have the same sort of system. It's rather remarkable when you think about it.

We began our visit at the archives. When we entered, the architectural plans for the crematoria were already spread out on the table. Some of these meticulous plans had been drawn by inmates, who, Robert Jan pointed out, signed them with their prison numbers, no names. All I could think of at that moment was Primo Levi's observation about his time in Auschwitz, where a number was tattooed on his arm: "Only a man is worthy of a name."6

Society is an insane asylum ran by the inmates.

Whereas robocalls are ever-present, the problem of contraband cellphones in prisons - that is, cellphones illegally being used by inmates - is generally out-of-sight and too easily ignored. But the need for action is just as clear.

Chopper Read attended a writing school I gave for inmates at Risdon Prison in Hobart many years ago. Even if I hadn't known about his hacked-off ears and his criminal history, I'd have found him powerful and compelling.

I grew up in Huntsville, which is a main prison town. It's crazy. The conditions are so bad in prison, often, for the inmates.

Prisons are called 'correctional facilities' because the goal is to correct the behavior that sent people there.