Gregory David Roberts Quotes

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.

Then once you get people locked up, it's an incredibly inhuman system.

Since the late 1970's, the main focus of prisons has been punishment, not rehabilitation. It's hard to believe, but you would be hard-pressed to find a meaningful violence-prevention class in a federal or state penitentiary. And 'we the people' are footing the bill to keep these folks imprisoned. It costs on average $46,000 a year to keep an adult incarcerated in California and about the same for New York State.

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.

As a prosecutor, I've been in prisons. I've had the opportunity to see what they're like in America.

Place all prisons near a high-road, where the suffering and disfigured offenders can be seen

Prisons are universities of the opposition.

Too many Americans are going to too many prisons for far too long.

I grew up in Huntsville, which is a main prison town. It's crazy. The conditions are so bad in prison, often, for the inmates.

There's definitely a way to fix the prison system. First of all, you gotta get a rehabilitation center in prisons, that every inmate must go through.

Imprisonment, as it exists today, is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims.

Most of us think prison is a place where bad people go - which is what I thought for a long time - until you really start to look inside the system and you see, this is not right.

The prison system today is so messed up. Some people say, "Some criminals are made in prison," and it's actually true. The numbers and the facts are very clear. Almost 70% re-offend, and they re-offend, more often than not, with a worse crime than what they were put away for. And what's mind-boggling is that it's not in anyone's interests. It's a waste of enormous resources, with money, but also all of these young men and women that have their lives ruined.

Capitalism needs and must have the prison to protect itself from the criminals it has created.

First of all, I didn't suggest that we should simply get rid of all prisons.

My buddy tells me a lot of interesting stories about what goes on in prison - it just makes my head spin about what they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

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

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.

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

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

Our job is to incarcerate offenders and not hospitalize sick people…. We are reluctant to advocate better mental help facilities within our jail as it would only attract more people in need of mental health services

Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In December 2006, some 2.25 million persons were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes…. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.

Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.

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.

The problem with Georgia prisons was the poor quality of the inmates.