Incarceration Quotes - Page 2

• The criminalization of Black life was something specific to the United States in the post-Reconstruction period and there's something like it happening today with mass incarceration, directed largely against black males.

  Noam Chomsky

  Black, Males, United States

  "Chomsky: "The Business Elites ... Are Instinctive Marxists"". Interview with Keane Bhatt, www.truth-out.org. November 19, 2010.

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• We're already going down that path with illegal drug use and incarceration. I can't imagine it getting any worse.

  Greg Gutfeld

  Drug Use, Path, Imagine

  "Critics pan Obama's threat to bypass Congress". "The Five" with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling, Dana Perino, and Greg Gutfeld, www.foxnews.com. January 16, 2014.

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• Many states can no longer afford to support public education, public benefits, public services without doing something about the exorbitant costs that mass incarceration have created.

  Bryan Stevenson

  Support, Cost, Benefits

  "Bryan Stevenson on the True Costs of Mass Incarceration". Interview with Theresa Riley, billmoyers.com. July 12, 2012.

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• In order to bring down the incarceration rate, you've got to start with the beginning of life. You've got to make sure that parents and schools are prepared to prepare young people for success. You've got to deal with the next stage of life. You've got to make sure that people have the opportunity to work at a good job, they have access to good healthcare, and that they have the opportunity to build wealth over time.

  Benjamin Jealous

  Jobs, School, Opportunity

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Dunbar-Ortiz strips us of our forged innocence, shocks us into new awareness, and draws a straight line from the sins of our fathers-settler-colonialism, the doctrine of discovery, the myth of manifest destiny, white supremacy, theft and systematic killing-to the contemporary condition of permanent war, invasion and occupation, mass incarceration, and the constant use and threat of state violence.

  Bill Ayers

  Father, War, Destiny

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• What is reflected in the way this behavior is happening - in the way that minorities are treated, and the way that the incarceration system works, and the way that even the police are treated, and the way they're paid, and the way they're trained, and the whole educational system.

  Oren Moverman

  Educational, Police, Minorities

  "Rampart Director, Oren Moverman Interview". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• If you look at it that way, then you start thinking about the basic things, which are jobs not jails, and education not incarceration.

  Oren Moverman

  Jobs, Thinking, Jail

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• We recriminalized black life. Incarceration rates since the 1908s have gone through the roof, overwhelmingly black males, women and Hispanics to some extent. Essentially re-doing what happened under Reconstruction. That's the history of African Americans - so how can any one say there's no problem. Sure, racism is serious, but it's worse than that.

  Noam Chomsky

  Racism, African American, Black

  "Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide". Interview with Laura Flanders, www.alternet.org. May 4, 2012.

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• We are the in midst of a bipartisan moment as it relates to criminal justice reform and dealing with mass incarceration in America which disproportionately impacts the African-American community.

  Hakeem Jeffries

  Impact, America, Justice

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• The Democratic leadership has expressed great concern for the incarceration rate in the commonwealth in the last few years. Now they want to fill the prisons up with people who would violate the merit law, a law that's been proven to be ambiguous at best and impossible to understand at worst.

  Bill Vaughan

  Years, Law, People

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• The sunlight ranges over the universe, and at incarnation we step out of it into the twilight of the body, and see but dimly during the period of our incarceration; at death we step out of the prison again into the sunlight, and are nearer to the reality.

  Annie Besant

  Twilight, Reality, Body

  Annie Besant (2012). “The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant”, p.342, Jazzybee Verlag

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• 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.

  Michelle Alexander

  Rights, Judging, Progress

  Michelle Alexander (2013). “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, p.15, The New Press

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

  Michelle Alexander

  War, Color, People

  "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness". Book by Michelle Alexander, January 5, 2010.

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• From the baking aisle to the post office line to the wrapping paper bin in the attic, women populate every dark corner of Christmas. Who got up at 4 a.m. to put the ham in the oven? A woman. . . . Who sent the Christmas card describing her eighteen-year-old son's incarceration as 'a short break before college?' A woman. Who remembered to include batteries at the bottom of each stocking? A woman. And who gets credit for pulling it all off? Santa.That's right. A man.

  Rachel Held Evans

  Healing, Son, Dark

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• During my incarceration Mother visited me. She had in some way managed to leave the workhouse and was making an effort to establish a home for us. Her presence was like a bouquet of flowers; she looked so fresh and lovely that I felt ashamed of my unkempt appearance and my shaved iodined head.'You must excuse his dirty face,' said the nurse.Mother laughed, and how well I remember her endearing words as she hugged and kissed me: 'With all thy dirt I love thee still.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Mother, Dirty, Flower

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

  Michelle Alexander

  Issues, Justice, Mass Incarceration

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• If we want to do more than just end mass incarceration—if we want to put an end to the history of racial caste in America—we must lay down our racial bribes, join hands with people of all colors who are not content to wait for change to trickle down, and say to those who would stand in our way: Accept all of us or none.

  Michelle Alexander

  Hands, Color, America

  Michelle Alexander (2013). “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, p.258, The New Press

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• We can’t talk about mass incarceration at this point without talking about women.

  dream hampton

  Talking, Mass Incarceration, Mass

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• 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.

  Kevin Drum

  Real, America, Looks

  "Our Obsession With Mass Incarceration May Finally Be Ebbing" by Kevin Drum, www.motherjones.com. January 2, 2015.

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• Monastic incarceration is castration.

  Victor Hugo

  Castration

  Victor Hugo (1862). “Cosette”, p.130

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• It's time to end the era of mass incarceration. We need a true national debate about how to reduce our prison population.

  Hillary Clinton

  Prison Population, Needs, Eras

  "Read: Hillary Clinton's huge new speech on criminal justice reform". Hillary Clinton's speech at Columbia University, www.vox.com. April 29, 2015.

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• 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.

  Michelle Alexander

  Race, Color, Racism

  Michelle Alexander (2013). “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, p.58, The New Press

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• The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly you look at those blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those blacks who have dropped out of high school. So it’s not being black; it’s a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people.

  Thomas Sowell

  Couple, Rap, School

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• When you have kids that have no jobs and are not in school, too often they get themselves into trouble. So what we have got to do is invest in education and in jobs, something which I have fought for, rather than more jails and incarceration.

  Bernie Sanders

  Jobs, School, Kids

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• Think of the question of mass incarceration. Think of the coding that the Republican Party has used for years, whether they're talking about Obama or blacks or Willie Horton.

  Henry Giroux

  Party, Thinking, Talking

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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