Best Mass Incarceration Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 2

“We're foolish if we think we're going to end mass incarceration unless we are willing to deal with the reality that huge percentages of poor people are going to remain jobless, locked out of the mainstream economy, unless and until they have a quality education that prepares them well for the new economy. There has got to be much more collaboration between the two movements and a greater appreciation for the work of the advocates in each community. It's got to be a movement that's about education, not incarceration - about jobs, not jails.”

“There is a tremendous amount of confusion and denial that exists about mass incarceration today, and that is the biggest barrier to movement building. As long as we remain in denial about this system, movement building will be impossible. Exposing youth in classrooms to the truth about this system and developing their critical capacities will, I believe, open the door to meaningful engagement and collective, inspired action.”

“I think it's critically important for people to understand that this system of mass incarceration governs not just those who find themselves in prison on any given day, but also all those who are in jail, on probation or parole, as well as all those who are just months away from being locked up again because they are unable to find work or housing due to their criminal record.”

People Thinking Wells Important Given Records Months Mass Prison Dues Criminals Jail Locked Housing Locked Up Incarceration Parole Mass Incarceration Probation

Author:Michelle Alexander

“The war on drugs has been the engine of mass incarceration. Drug convictions alone constituted about two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison population and more than half of the increase in the state prison population between 1985 and 2000, the period of our prison system's most dramatic expansion.”

“For those who say that the war on drugs and the system of mass incarceration really isn't about race, I say there is no way we would allow the majority of young white men to be swept into the criminal justice system for minor drug offenses, branded criminals and felons, and then stripped of their basis civil and human rights while young black men who are engaged in the same activity trot off to college. That would never be accepted as the norm.”

“In my view, the critical questions in this era of mass incarceration are: What disturbs us? What seems contrary to expectation? Who do we really care about?”

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Author:Michelle Alexander

“For those interested in learning more about corporations and private individuals profiting from the caging of human beings, I highly recommend the book "Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money From Mass Incarceration."”

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Author:Michelle Alexander

“Our system of mass incarceration is better understood as a system of racial and social control than a system of crime prevention or control.”

Social Crime Mass Understood Prevention Incarceration Mass Incarceration Social Control

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“The system functioned relatively automatically, and the prevailing system of racial meanings, identities, and ideologies already seemed natural. Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were Black or Latino, yet the mass incarceration of communities of color was explained in race-neutral terms, an adaptation to the needs and demands of the current political climate.”

Source: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.”

“Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.”

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Book:The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Source: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison.”

Source: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of mass incarceration is just too big, too daunting for us to do anything about and that we should instead direct our energies to battles that might be more easily won, history will judge us harshly. A human rights nightmare is occurring on our watch.”

Source: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”

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Author:Michelle Alexander

“We have not ended racial caste in America, we have merely redesigned it.”

America Castes Jim Crow Mass Incarceration Felons Employment Discrimination

Author:Michelle Alexander

“Nothing has contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs”

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Author:Michelle Alexander

“Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and largely less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

“Our criminal justice system has swallowed up too many people I love. I am proud to join the ACLU in the fight to make mass incarceration a thing of the past.”

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Author:Michael K. Williams

“Mass incarceration is the most pressing racial justice issue of our time.”

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Author:Michelle Alexander

“In other words, in the same way that mass incarceration surged because of a real thing, it's finally starting to ebb because of a real thing: the actual, concrete decline in violent crime that started in the early 90s and which appears to be permanent. America is simply a safer place than it used to be, and looks set to stay that way.”

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Author:Kevin Drum

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Mass Incarceration Quotes