Hill Harper Quotes

When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity.

Locking minors away for decades doesn't solve anything.

Despite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world, the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous?

Then I read Little Women, and of course, like a lot of really young girls, I was very taken with Jo - Jo being the writer and the misfit.

It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty.

We are among the handful of countries that has difficulty distinguishing juveniles from adults where crime is concerned. We are convinced that if a child commits an adult crime, that kid is magically transformed into an adult. Consequently, we try juveniles as adults.

I have to say I'm all for public flogging. One type of criminal that a public humiliation might work particularly well with are the juvenile delinquents, a lot of whom consider it a badge of honor to be sent to juvenile detention.

J. K. Rowling has already got a whole generation reading.

Juvenile justice is probably the area that's most ripe for reform, in the nice liberal sense of the word, simply because there's no getting around the fact that a teenage brain is not an adult brain.

I wouldn't have voted to prosecute 13-year-olds as adults.

Robert F. Kennedy Juvenile Justice Collaborative was formed in 2009 to improve federal youth reentry policy through advocacy, coalition building, and giving voice to youth who are directly impacted by the justice system.

If you haven't time to help youngsters find the right way in life, somebody with more time will help them find the wrong way.

In the state of Mississippi, Many Years Ago, a boy of 14 years got a taste of Southern law.

There is a tendency to dehumanize kids that commit crimes. The system is focused on punishment, not on rehabilitation. These kids are the most misunderstood and most cruelly treated.

The fifties were when people started coming down on "juvenile delinquents," "hoodlums," "vandals"--anybody that was young, wore a motorcycle jacket, and didn't act polite around older people.

They put me in a holding cell with a black kid and a white kid and a Chinese kid. We're the United Nations of juvenile delinquents.

Every child I know who overcame long odds and grew into a responsible adult can point to an adult who stepped into his or her life as a FRIEND, a MENTOR, and a GUIDE.

Juvenile delinquency serves many purposes, including that of providing sadistic adults with fantasies suited to their special tastes.

In my view, one of the major reasons that we have so many people in jail is that we have turned our backs on a lot young people.

Look, we'll have to confront the pathologies of poverty at some point. We can deal with them cheaply at the front end, in infancy. Or we can wait and jail a troubled adolescent at the tail end. To some extent, we face a choice between investing in preschools or in prisons.

The book that made me want to be a writer in the first place was Gone with the Wind - I read it and wanted to create a whole world out of words, too.

Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.

You have to get autistic kids out and expose them to things, but do this without any surprises, so they know what to expect. You have to find skilled mentors to teach them things. For me, it was an aunt, and it was my science teacher. You need to find the things they're interested in and good at and expand on this.

Fathers are so necessary as examples and guides for our children in wisdom and virtue. Without father figures, young people often feel orphaned; left adrift at a critical moment in their growth and development.

We have to step up as adults and try to guide our youth.