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Prison Quotes

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Prison Quotes

“According to our faith, we're all created for a single reason, which is to worship Allah. One way to worship is how you handle hardship and dilemmas in your life. Life on this earth is a test for us, and we should expect anything, even the worst hardships, in our test. At the same time, nothing happens without Allah's permission; nothing moves without Allah's will. If we were at Guantánamo, He had willed it and we would leave when He willed it. But we had free will to choose our path while here.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“How do you do it?'' one of the nicer guards asked me one day through the interpreter. ''How do you not lose your mind with loneliness? How do you starve yourself? How do you survive without wanting to die?'' ''Allah,'' I said and then tried to explain to him about my faith and the belief that all of this was Allah's wish. For years, the interrogators, Miller, the revolving door of colonels had desensitized us to the violence of our daily lives. They hit us so much that we no longer felt the pain of the punch. There was something bigger at work protecting us, something beyond our capabilities, and that kept us alive without losing our minds. This was Allah's Mercy, and we all felt it there. We couldn't survive without Allah's help.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“Islam is a practical religion that's woven into the fabric of our daily life. General Miller, this head of interrogations, the interrogators and psychologists all failed to understand the depth and strength of our faith. Yes, we were physically weak, we were beaten, and they would beat us more, but our strength was in our hearts, and our hearts were driven by our faith and trust in Allah. We couldn't be bought with promises of riches.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“After so many years of interrogations, I had learned that praying and reciting the Qur'an completely shut off all my senses so that I didn't hear, I didn't see, I didn't feel anymore. I just existed in the moment but outside the moment. Interrogators could talk for hours. They could do all kinds of horrible humiliating things to me and they did. But it didn't matter anymore.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“For centuries it was considered that a criminal was given a sentence for precisely this purpose, to think about his crime for the whole period of his sentence, be conscience-stricken, repent, and gradually reform. But the Gulag Archipelago knows no pangs of conscience! Out of one hundred natives—five are thieves, and their transgressions are no reproach in their own eyes, but a mark of valor. They dream of carrying out such feats in the future even more brazenly and cleverly. They have nothing to repent. Another five… stole on a big scale, but not from people; in our times, the only place where one can steal on a big scale is from the state, which itself squanders the people's money without pity or sense—so what was there for such types to repent of? Maybe that they had not stolen more and divvied up—and thus remained free? And, so far as another 85 percent of the natives were concerned—they had never committed any crimes whatever. What were they supposed to repent of? That they has thought what they thought? (Nonetheless, they managed to pound and muddle some of them to such an extent that they did repent—of being so depraved….) Or that a man had surrendered and become a POW in a hopeless situation? Or that he had taken employment under the Germans instead of dying of starvation? (Nonetheless, the managed so to confuse what was permitted and what was forbidden that there were some such who were tormented greatly: I would have done better to die than to have earned that bread.) Or that while working for nothing in the collective-farm fields, he had taken a mite to feed his children? Or that he had taken something from a factory for the same reason? No, not only do you not repent, but your clean conscience, like a clear mountain lake, shines in your eyes.”

PrisonReformGulag1975Catch 22The AscentThe Soul And Barbed Wire
Book:The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books III-IV
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“If our cherished rubrics are in any way threatened, we immediately rise up and bring the whole our ourselves to bear in a rigorous defense of them. And might it be that what we’ve errantly defined as a ‘threat’ is in fact an act of liberation that we didn’t see as such simply because (unbeknownst to us) our rubrics have become our own asphyxiating prisons and we’ve become our own wardens. Hence, let us dare not confuse the rescue mission that we call Christmas with anything less than what it is.”

PrisonLiberationBeliefsHostageRubricsWardenConfiningRestricting
Author:Craig D. Lounsbrough
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“I’m sorry you lost your mom, but man, you got to look at this a different way. Now you have someone in heaven who is going to argue your case before god. It was silent for a few moments and then the most amazing thing happened, on a dark night in what must surely be the most desolate and dehumanizing place on earth, a man laughed.”

GodHopePrisonPrisonerDeath Row
Book:The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
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“For a detained patriot, breaking through the doubled walls of gray silence, attempting even a symbolic link with the outside world, is an act of resistance And resistance--even at the level of merely asserting one's rights, of maintaining one's ideological beliefs in the face of a programmed onslaught--is in fact the only way political prisoners can maintain their sanity and humanity. Resistance is the only means of trying to prevent a breakdown. The difficulty lies in the fact that in this effort one must rely first and foremost on one's own resources (writing defiance on toilet paper for instance), and nobody can teach one how to do it.”

SpiritPrisonResistanceImprisonmentKenyaPolitical Prisoner
Book:Wrestling with the Devil: A Prison Memoir
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“¿Sabes que ese manzano fue plantado con la tierra robada a los Rodilla-Herida por el gobernador del estado? ¿Acaso tú conoces que su savia se nutre con los huesos y pelos prisioneros de San Quintín? Did you know that apple tree was planted on land stolen from Wounded Knee by the governor of the state? Perhaps you know how its sap is nourished with the prisoner bones and hair of San Quentin? (de Un Manzano de Oakland, para Angela Davis)”

PrisonWounded KneeAngela Davis
Book:Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing: Selected Poetry
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“When I went to prison and came out, it was like another stripe being added to my shoulder—another notch of respect on my belt. On the streets, you cannot get a name until you do something. You have to prove who you are by doing something outrageous, like shooting someone from a rival gang. It allowed others to see what type of person you were, and established the fact that you were ready for anything. Back in the day, what we were looking for was for someone to have our backs. So every time I did something and was recognized for what I did, it gave me more nerves to continue. After the deed was all said and done, and we were hanging on the blocks, everyone is praising you and talking about what you did. You all should have been there. You should have seen how Taco rushed up on that fella and dealt with him. Those praises were like drugs that eventually poison the mind, and gave you more inspiration to do things to have more people talking about you. People recognizing you as one who isn’t scared, one who is ready to do whatever is needed. No one ever wants to go to prison. I never wanted to go to prison. I just wanted to be recognized as one willing and ready for a battle anytime. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison in the Bahamas”

PrisonRecognitionAnother WorldGangstersDrug AddictionBad BoysStreet LifeRebellion RaidersSense Of BelongingPraisesGang InterventionGang LifeStreet FameDie Hard GangstersGang PrideStreet FamilyHard Core GangstersRight Of PassageStreet Recognition
Book:The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father
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“When I first went to prison, I made the best out of it. From the streets, I was hearing reports of Rebellions going to prison and getting do in [beat up]. Our fellas had no say, couldn’t even open up their mouths. When I went up there for the first time, I turned that prison into a place that everyone could say that the Rebellions were running it after that. I wouldn’t say I did it alone, but I help set the groundwork to give the Rebellions a say in prison. Scrooge, former leader of the Rebellion Raiders street gang that once boasted of having some ten thousand members”

InfluencePrisonJailGangstersRebellion RaidersGang LifeGang LeadersStreet Fame
Book:The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father
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“I had a chance to read Monte Christo in prison once, too, but not to the end. I observed that while Dumas tries to create a feeling of horror, he portrays the Château d'If as a rather benevolent prison. Not to mention his missing such nice details as the carrying of the latrine bucket from the cell daily, about which Dumas with the ignorance of a free person says nothing. You can figure out why Dantès could escape. For years no one searched the cell, whereas cells are supposed to be searched every week. So the tunnel was not discovered. And then they never changed the guard detail, whereas experience tells us that guards should be changed every two hours so one can check on the other. At the Château d'If they didn't enter the cells and look around for days at a time. They didn't even have any peepholes, so d'If wasn't a prison at all, it was a seaside resort. They even left a metal bowl in the cell, with which Dantès could dig through the floor. Then, finally, they trustingly sewed a dead man up in a bag without burning his flesh with a red-hot iron in the morgue and without running him through with a bayonet at the guardhouse. Dumas ought to have tightened up his premises instead of darkening the atmosphere.”

PrisonEscape1968Book ReviewSpoilersPrison LifeDumasPrison EscapePrison GuardsGleb NerzhinCount Of Monte CristoSharashka
Book:The First Circle
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“Those who floated in the ark were weightless and had weightless thoughts. They were neither hungry nor satisfied. They had no happiness and no fear of losing it. Their heads were not filled with petty official calculations, intrigues, promotions, and their shoulders were not burdened with concerns about housing, fuel, bread, and clothes for the children. Love, which from time immemorial has been the delight and the torment of humanity, was powerless to communicate to them its thrill or its agony. Their prison terms were so long that no one even thought of the time when he would go out into freedom. Men with exceptional Intellect, education, and experience, but too devoted to their families to have much of themselves left over for their friends, here belonged only to friends.”

PrisonSoviet UnionPolice State1968Sabbath RestSharashka
Book:The First Circle
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“Because the drug war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, when drug offenders are released, they are generally returned to racially segregated ghetto communities--the places they call home. In many cities, the re-entry phenomenon is highly concentrated in a small number of neighborhoods. According to one study, during a twelve-year period, the number of prisoners returning home to "core counties"--those counties that contain the inner city of a metropolitan area--tripled. The effects are felt throughout the United States. In interviews with one hundred residents of two Tallahassee, Florida communities, researchers found that nearly every one of them had experienced or expected to experience the return of a family member from prison. Similarly, a survey of families living in the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago found that the majority of residents either had a family member in prison or expected one to return from prison within the next two years. Fully 70 percent of men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five in the impoverished and overwhelmingly black North Lawndale neighborhood on Chicago's West Side are ex-offenders, saddled for life with a criminal record. The majority (60 percent) were incarcerated for drug offenses. These neighborhoods are a minefield for parolees, for a standard condition of parole is a promise not to associate with felons. As Paula Wolff, a senior executive at Chicago Metropolis 2020 observes, in these ghetto neighborhoods, "It is hard for a parolee to walk to the corner store to get a carton of milk without being subject to a parole violation.”

Social JusticePrisonSegregationJim CrowMass Incarceration
Book:The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
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“No one wakes up and says they want to be a gangbanger or a drug dealer- that's the last stop on the train. That what you do when you're drowning and reaching out for something- anything- to survive. By the time they get to the corner, there has been a series of things that led to that decision. No one wakes up at the top of the mountain and decides they would like it better down there on the bottom. They end up there out of desperation. We don't spend enough time examining the wider picture, the steps that get them there. We don't tell that part of the story. And to tell half the story is to spread a lie.”

SurvivalPrisonJailDesperationIncarcerationCriminal Justice SystemBlack CommunityBlack YouthJuvenile Justice System
Book:Scenes from My Life: A Memoir
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“There were occasional dances at the main prison compound with live bands as well as holiday dinners, activities that Blanche greatly enjoyed. In her scrapbooks, she placed an autographed promotional photograph of one visiting band, The Rural Ramblers. ... Blanche loved to dance and by all accounts she was very good at it. She applied to a correspondence course in dancing that came complete with diagrams of select dance steps to place on the floor and practice. She also cut similar dance instructions and diagrams from newspapers and magazines and put them in her scrapbooks. By 1937, she had mastered popular dances like jitterbug, rumba, samba, and tango. The men’s prison, or “the big prison” as the women called it, hosted movies on Friday nights. Features like Roll Along Cowboy ... were standard, usually accompanied by some short musical feature such as Who’s Who and a newsreel. The admission was five cents. Blanche attended many of these movies. She loved movies all of her life. Blanche Barrow’s periodic visits to the main prison allowed her to fraternize with males. She apparently had a brief encounter with “the boy in the warden’s office” in the fall of 1934. There are few details, but their relationship was evidently ended abruptly by prison officials in December. There were other suitors, some from Blanche Barrow’s past, and some late arrivals...”

PrisonPrisonerGreat Depression1930sPrison LifeWomen S Prison
Book:My Life with Bonnie and Clyde
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“[At Eastham, probably after sexual abuse]: In Barrow's own words to Fults, 'I'd like to shoot all these damned guards and turn everybody loose.' Fults, initially unimpressed by the diminutive Barrow, later noted the change he witnessed. 'I seen him change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake. He got real bitter.' ... This is echoed by members of the Barrow family who noted a distinct difference in Barrow's personality after his 1932 parole. According to his sister Marie, 'Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison, because he wasn't the same person when he got out.”

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Book:My Life with Bonnie and Clyde
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“, There is nothing we would want to save from the military and the prison when they are destroyed. But there may be much we want to save in the non-profit and the university. Our task then is to think about how to nurture these elements to prepare them for their lives outside of their current institutional forms.”

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Book:The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
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“I began to notice something strange about the nature of incarceration; in particular, its imposition on the minds and bodies of the imprisoned, promoting a number of inmates to take personal responsibility for a system of failure beyond their control—a system built on hiding in plain sight the institutional, historical, and material limits of personal choice….Taking on the failures of a system without critically examining the limits of personal choice often led a number of cellmates to conflate their sense of responsibility with issues beyond their control. --Kalaniopua Young, “From a Native Trans Daughter”

PrisonJailPersonal ResponsibilitySystemic RacismSystemic Failure
Book:Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
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