Susan Burton Quotes

I know what it's like to be ignored, and I think that is the big problem about the prison system: These people are being thrown away. There is no sense of rehabilitation. In some places, they are trying to do things. But, in most cases, it's a holding cell.

I believe, and I may be wrong, the system sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Prison is supposed to rehabilitate, but they don't do that in a lot of cases.

I've worked in the prison system for five years, and most of those folks in prison didn't have a direction.

Prisons are out of public sight, and most often out of mind. But the vast majority of prisoners will at some point leave jail and rejoin our communities, which is why what happens inside matters to us all.

We must do better by offenders who are sent to prison to make them less likely to return.

All emphasis in American prisons is on punishment, retribution, and disparagement, and almost none is on rehabilitation.

The second time I went to jail, I was like, 'Okay, this is not the move.'

We're recycling very dangerous criminals over and over again.

I don't even think jail helps Gucci Mane. It clearly doesn't.

As soon as I ended up being incarcerated, I said, you know, this is not the life for me.

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.

Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.

We need prisons because there are some hardcore criminals, but I never met a guy who has been in jail that came out with a smile on his face thinking, 'Right, that's it - now I am going to be good!'

I've definitely become more aware of the penal system and more aware of what life could be like inside a prison.

Prisons are universities of the opposition.

The United States imprisons many non-violent offenders who could instead be required to pay fines, perform community service, and make restitution to their victims… Maintaining our vast network of prisons consumes resources that could be better spent on education and other crime prevention efforts... Rather than reforming offenders, prison too often degrades and dehumanizes prisoners, making the task of rehabilitation and reentry into society even more difficult.

[We have to make] a distinction between dangerous violent criminals and people who are engaged in non-violent criminal activities….Your taking somebody out of the economy, breaking up their families, and putting them in a place with hardened criminals. I think that it is pretty hard to argue that has been a positive long-term result.

We spend $94,000 per prisoner [per year]. There is a tension between punishment and making people’s lives better and I don’t actually think that we have done the second part well. We put people in prison and expect them to come out

A duty to the public must be to stop prisoners reoffending through successful rehabilitation.

Almost one in three Americans has had some contact with the criminal justice system. When you reach that saturation point, people begin to understand, in a very visceral way, the difficulties of reentry.

Unfortunately, if the man who leaves the prison gates is just as likely or - as is sometimes grievously the case - more likely to offend as he was when he entered them, then we fail not only the individual but public safety as well.

Unless we address those that are leaving prisons, we can't begin to repair the damage of mass incarceration and make our communities whole and healthy once again.

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?

Don't hire a prison consultant.

I've been working in adult prisons and juvenile prisons for some time.