Brian Kemp Quotes

We spend an awful lot of money on the criminal justice system that could better be spent at the other end of the spectrum.

In the long run, a flexible sentencing procedure which works to rehabilitate offenders offers the best hope in the majority of cases in the Federal courts.

I want to see prison numbers come down. We need better custody that cuts reoffending and crime. And we need to ensure judges, magistrates and the public have full confidence in the other penalties available.

Violent felons and people with mental health problems need to be rehabilitated.

I represented many of these kids as they become young adults in the criminal justice system when I was a public defender. One way of reaching out is by the mind of experimentation.

If you put a woman in prison for four years when she's young and make her pay her time in a horrible place and she wants to come out and work, and become a mother and be a contributor to society and pay taxes and you never give her that chance. There is something un-Canadian about that.

America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.

Once you have a felony conviction on your record, one of the most difficult things to do is to break the cycle of recidivism.

We need to incorporate that age-old concept of redemption into the work that we do in the criminal justice system in California.

I strongly believe that for serious and violent criminals, we must absolutely hold them accountable for their crimes and send them to prison.

We lose our right to be surprised that California has the highest recidivism rate in the country if we refuse to hire folks who have taken responsibility for their crimes and have done their time.

I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…

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.

If we have to build more prisons, it means we have failed.

Giving low-level offenders a second chance, no matter the color of their skin or the economic status they hold, can create opportunity for all of us.

We continue to work on policy to end discrimination against people with criminal records.

We rarely have good alternatives to offer to prison - that's our default.

We are fighting to pass clean-slate legislation in Pennsylvania to seal nonviolent misdemeanor records automatically after 10 years. We must provide opportunities for employment, housing, education, loans, and voting. We should not disenfranchise a third of the population.

I want to look at the community I came from and what role incarceration has played there.

What does justice look like for a survivor? It'll mean different things to different communities.

I knew hundreds and hundreds of women like me, who had traveled in and out of prison in a revolving door. They needed support and help just like I had received. And it could make a difference, just like it had made a difference in my life. I wanted to see them come back to the community and have a chance at a different life, too.

We are a humane society, and one which believes that we have to help rehabilitate offenders so they turn away from crime.

This is not rocket science. If you mentor and support people when they leave prison they're less likely to reoffend.

We need to do a better job identifying what's contributing to the crime and making sure we hold people accountable in a way that addresses that root cause.

Pardoning the Bad, is injuring the Good.