Jeffrey Archer Quotes

I have spent a lot of time listening to people who are serving life sentences and getting to know them and the circumstances of their lives. I have never met anyone serving a long prison sentence who had anything close to what I could call a childhood; instead, the upbringings always - always - involve extreme situations of poverty and abuse.

I spent five years of my youth in prison - some very bad prisons.

Prison life, fortunately, I spent a lot of years, about 18 years with other prisoners, and, as I say, they enriched your soul.

I grew to manhood in the Ohio State Penitentiary.

When you're in prison, and we're left to our own devices, you're stripped of everything, and you really get to see who these people are, the good and the bad.

People always think about what prison is. What prison really is - it's not a physical challenge, it's mental.

Jail is much easier on people who have nothing.

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

I've taught in prison; I've counseled people... I've been arrested; I've been to the psychiatrist.

I tell inmates all the time, 'Don't complain about your grind. Do your time.'

It was very cold in jail. But inmates were good. They shared their stories with me.

I had a lot of time and the first year I was in prison, I tried to get the party to stop the shooting, to stop the talk about the gun thing.

Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

And I did wonder - because it's now three years ago since I left prison - whether there would come a time when I would forget it, or it would be in the past as anything else might be - no, it's there every day of my life.

I came out even with all the struggles I endured on Rikers Island.

I was kind of excited about going to jail the first time and I learnt some great dialogue.

Prison opened my eyes to so many things. It was a great time. I met interesting people. I got to understand the behaviour of the police and the media. I am an observer of the human race.

Prisons are fascinating places, especially when the inmates are educated white-collar types.

I don't think women's prisons are environments for dance routines, and I don't think mass murder is humorous.

Statistics say that I'm supposed to be in jail. And I'm not supposed to be alive.

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

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

[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.

The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.'