Quotessence
Home / Topics / Prison Quotes

Prison Quotes

Browse 2429 quotes about Prison.

Related topics

PeopleIfsMenYearsThinkingWorldCrimeKnowsPrisonerWantWayJailWallLongMindDoeStatesHas BeensHumansWellsLawSchoolShouldSoulCountryGovernmentPunishmentGivingKindCriminalsLooksMadeNeedsCellsFirstsMayHomeFeelsLittlesWarHouseMeanBarsBelieveMightChildrenDrugSaidBreakBlackDoorsPersonsWritingI CanTryingWould BeHeartPastPoliceTwoBodyEndsInmatesLibertyStillsPoliticalRunningSelfWholeRealReasonCommunityDifferentFoundHandsRoomsSentencesTodayUsedBookDonePoorPrison WallsSufferingAmericaJusticeSecurityThreeChainsIdeasJobsPresidentProblemShowsSometimesTermYoungEyeHardHelpingmore

Prison Quotes

“Barack Obama's understanding of what the drug war had cost the country was meaningful. And very quietly in his second term, he and Eric Holder did make some adjustments in terms of the use of the Department of Justice, on the federal level. You saw ratcheting back of drug prohibition, and mass incarceration. You also saw, on the part of some certain states, a realization that they followed the war on drugs to a useless place, that they were only doing damage to communities, and bankrupting budgets with prison construction.”

WarCountryUnderstandingTermCommunityJusticeDrugPrisonMeaningfulRealizationBarackConstructionProhibitionWar On DrugsIncarceration
Author:David Simon
Create image

“I think we have to have capital punishment, I think there has to be something to contain certain people. Those deterrents I think are necessary, especially in prison. You can threaten people for just so long, but they can flip you off and do what they want to; but not if they have to die. I hate it, though, the thought of the death penalty is terrible, but it's completely necessary.”

PeopleThinkingLongHateTerribleI HatePrisonDeath PenaltyCapital Punishment
Author:Merle Haggard
Create image

“I live a much better life without having to worry about people chasing me. I spent five years in prison from 21 to 26, which is probably the best part of my youth behind bars. I was in some very bad prisons overseas as well. It was not a fun life, it was a very lonely life in reality. I was a smart enough kid to know that I was going to get caught. The law sometimes sleeps, but the law never dies. I knew it was just a matter of time. I would be caught and I'd get punished and face the consequences.”

PeopleSometimesEnoughRealityKidsFunSleepWorryYouthSmartConsequenceLonelyPrisonBetter Life
Author:Frank Abagnale
Create image

“Furthermore, the financial and social investment in prisons means that black and brown youth become, essentially, fodder for the machinery of capitalized incarceration. The steady supply of guns in the U.S. makes an already untenable situation even more dangerous, and all of us must raise our voices, write to Congress, hit the streets in protest, attend budget meetings of local municipalities - all to state our opposition to such criminal procedures and practices for our youth.”

WritingMeanBlackSituationDangerousYouthGunPrisonMeetingsInvestmentFinancialProtestSteadyIncarceration
Author:Michael Eric Dyson
Create image

“I think that there are times when Puertoricans think, "Oh, we are blessed with the relationship with the U.S." But the end result will not be that. If Puerto Rico becomes similar to Hawaii - well, the Hawaiian Native population is about 9 percent. And if we go to the prisons, the overwhelming majority of the prisoners are the Natives. So I can anticipate that Puerto Ricans will not be better off by the annexation of the U.S. of Puerto Rico. I also know for a fact that once any nation or any people lose their identity, their language, their lifestyles, that they are a little dehumanized.”

PeopleThinkingLanguageIdentityBlessedPrisonLifestyleNativePrisonerOverwhelmingPuerto Rico
Author:Oscar Lopez Rivera
Create image

“During the Boom Years, it was so easy to lose sight of basic values. For example, there was lots of nonsense said and written about the so-called "New Economy." Some people said all economic laws have been overturned! Then all the problems developed. Corporations were heavily fined for illegalities. Many of their senior-level executives were indicted, convicted, and sent to prison.”

PeopleProblemValuesEasyEconomyEconomicPrisonNonsense
Author:Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Create image

“Khodorkovsky is richest man. And he lost everything when Putin arrested him and took his company away, and essentially took his company away, sold it, and gave it to other people, and enriched them. So, he's a complicated figure as an opposition leader, and people admire him - he was in prison, and he was very brave, and he's written some good things since then, and so on. But at the end of the day, people see him as being part of the corrupt system that has done so much to undermine the Russian system since the 1990s, and I don't know that he can ever be a really popular leader.”

PeopleMenDoneLeaderPrisonBraveGood ThingsComplicatedAdmire
Author:Anne Applebaum
Create image

“After the fall of communism in Poland, we had a post-communist as president for two terms: Aleksander Kwasniewski. He was very good. He brought Poland into NATO and the European Union. The call to finally clean house is a propaganda tool of the right, which tolerates the leftists who it condemns. Kaczynski appointed a judge to the position of deputy justice minister who had once sentenced current President Bronislaw Komorowski to a prison term.”

FallHousePresidentTermJusticeJudgingPrisonVery GoodCommunismPropagandaTolerateEuropean UnionNato
Author:Adam Michnik
Create image

“Some studies have shown close to 70 percent of men who are in prison have one of two things in common: One, they can't read. And two, they witnessed violence or were victims of violence as a child. You would think that if you had seen your mother get beaten when you were 10 years old, you'd never raise your hand to a woman. Not true. The prospect that you will increases dramatically if you witness violence. So it's so much bigger than just about women. It's about our society. It's about our culture. It's about who the hell we are.”

ThinkingMenChildrenMotherCultureCommonHellStudyViolenceVictimPrisonWitness
Author:Joe Biden
Create image

“Being a lawyer, first of all, think creatively. Think, "How can we deal with this particular case in a way we haven't dealt with similar ones in the past?" Second, don't be afraid of the people who are willing to defend your client. I find too many lawyers say, "Keep that defense committee away from me!" If it weren't for my defense committee, I'd be sitting in federal prison in Texas today. And the press! You've got to learn to handle the press because god knows the government does all the time.”

PeopleThinkingTodayPastPrisonLawyerGod Knows
Author:Lynne Stewart
Create image

“There's a lot of forces opposed to legalization marijuana, so I don't want to put the cart before the horse. It's looking like it's going the legalization route, which, you know, a lot of people thought it needs to for a long time outside of recreational and medicinal use, just for crime reasons. We're pumping our prisons full of petty weed offenses and it's partially to feed that industry, but it's not good. It's not good for society, people go in there as a minor criminal and come out as a real criminal.”

PeopleLongRealReasonCrimeHorsePrisonWeedMarijuanaOffense
Author:John Buffalo Mailer
Create image

“There's no straight line between closing the mental institutions and filling the prisons but there is some sort of relationship. And it's hard to tell how much mental illness among prisoners came in with them and how much is because of prison. I just imagine the real tragedy is there's probably a huge number of people who went in a little bit f - ked up and left completely insane because it's just a horrible treatment.”

PeopleRealImagineTragedyPrisonIllnessHorribleMental IllnessInsanePrisoner
Author:Peter Moskos
Create image

“I'm not a fan of the death penalty. At some level I think killing is wrong, but I don't have sympathy for most of the people sentenced - I'm not a passionate anti-death penalty person. In truth, given all the other problems of the justice system, the numbers are so small, I think there are bigger fish to fry. Ironically, in terms of mental health and care, death row is probably the best prison situation to be in. There's a little more public eye on that, to ensure at least minimal levels of official treatment are actually given to death row prisoners.”

PeopleThinkingProblemEyeCareTermJusticeSituationPrisonMental HealthKillingPassionatePrisonerDeath PenaltyJustice System
Author:Peter Moskos
Create image

“I find it weird that people who claim to speak for the prisoners basically want to keep them in cages all the time - and then they'll fight for better prison libraries or whatever. It's like they're missing the big picture. If I were in prison, of course I would prefer to be outside doing physical labour. It's not physical labour but prison life that kills a person. It's so bad inside that the outside jobs are often sought after. So, yeah, call them work crews and let them do it. At the same time the retributive side can feel the cons are being punished.”

PeopleFightingSpeakMissingPrisonLibraryLabourPrisonerBig Picture
Author:Peter Moskos
Create image

“We know that there were so many Japanese American soldiers in World War II who were fighting in Europe despite the fact that their families, their parents were back home in American prison camps. It's savagely ironic that between themselves and the African-American soldiers, who were also segregated and didn't see the fruition of the work the culminated in the Civil Rights Act until the '60s, that these American heroes and their stories are not well known; and the fact that the 442nd/100th became the most decorated unit in U.S. history.”

WorldWarHomeFightingParentHeroPrisonSoldierCivil RightsWar Of The WorldsIronicWorld War IiWorld War IWell KnownAmerican Soldier
Author:Tamlyn Tomita
Create image

“Despite all of the civil rights gains of the past several decades, when it comes to economic opportunity, African Americans and Latinos still experience far more unemployment than do whites and Asians, average wages are lower, and household wealth is lower. A smaller percentage of African Americans and Latinos attend, and complete, college, than is the case with whites and Asians, and a higher percentage end up in prison. All of these are indicators of massive disparities in opportunity, and these disparities are mirrored in poverty data.”

PastOpportunityWealthPovertyEconomicCollegePrisonCivil RightsAfrican AmericanLatino
Author:Sasha Abramsky
Create image

“When people are not in a prison cell they believe they are free and happy. That's not true. Because in Istanbul, the modern person wakes up at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock in the morning, gets on the bus for two hours to get to work, works at least ten hours, sometimes twelve or fourteen, then comes back home, just to make some money to pay for rent and food. That's not a human being's life. That's the life of a worm in the earth. That's the life of an insect.”

PeopleBelieveSometimesHomeEarthHoursMorningModernWake UpPrisonBus
Author:Burhan Sonmez
Create image

“Being a figurehead for those with family members in prison is somewhat new for me. Something I've discovered since my father's incarceration is that the prison system is broken. My first-hand experiences have taught me that reform needs to happen sooner than later. I'm most interested in mentoring children with parents in prison. When a parent is sentenced to a jail term, the child is sentenced to the same time to be spent without a mother or father. No child should suffer a stigma or lack support and guidance because of the sins of a parent.”

ChildrenMotherSufferingFatherParentTermSinSupportBrokenPrisonGuidanceStigmaMentoringIncarceration
Author:Kambri Crews
Create image

“There are several dozen political prisoners in Russia. When I cite that number people are often very surprised. They often think there are more. Well - there are hundreds of thousands of people who haven't had a fair trial, who are victims of the political system. But in the Amnesty International sense of the word, most of them are not political prisoners because they are not going to prison for protesting.”

PeopleThinkingPoliticalVictimPrisonPrisonerCiting
Author:Masha Gessen
Create image

“With Pussy Riot - this was a prank! It was a brilliant, artistically gifted prank. But they didn't expect to go to prison! They were college girls who became political prisoners for two years. That makes them very similar to the people who were "just going to a protest one day" and got arrested. They had no idea they were risking the rest of their lives. Because you're never the same after you've spent two years in a gulag.”

PeoplePoliticalGirlCollegeOne DayPrisonBrilliantProtestPrisonerRiot
Author:Masha Gessen
Create image

“Woodrow Wilson was the president of the United States in 1920, and he was made a fool of - his wife almost divorced him - because he wouldn't support women's suffrage. He was president during World War I, but I look back upon him as a coward. Because he knew the right thing to do - the right of women to vote was an idea whose time had come a long time before then, when a lot of women were put into prison or persecuted because they fought for it.”

WorldLongWarPresidentSupportWifeFoolVotePrisonWar Of The WorldsRight ThingCowardWorld War IDivorcedSuffrage
Author:Wayne Dyer
Create image

“The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world: two million people. One out of every eight prisoners in the world is an African American. We are warehousing people as a profit to shareholders or for benefits to communities that get to host federal prisons. It is modern slavery. The whole future of America's black community is at risk. One out of every three young black men in Washington, D.C., is under one arm or the other of the criminal justice system. These are the continuing consequences of slavery.”

PeopleMenWorldBlackCommunityJusticeRiskModernConsequenceSlaveryPrisonAfrican AmericanPrisonerHostJustice SystemCriminal Justice
Author:Randall Robinson
Create image