Michelle Alexander Quotes

Private landlords as well as public landlords are free to discriminate against people with criminal records for the rest of their lives. You come out of prison, and where are you expected to go?

Fair and affordable housing is a basic right for all New Yorkers and all Americans.

People return home from prison and face legal discrimination in virtually all areas of social and economic and political life. They are legally discriminated against employment, barred from public housing, and denied other public benefits.

Every judge should have real-time access to the criminal background and history of defendants who appear in their courtrooms - so that sentencing and bail decisions can be made with that information.

Since evictions go through court, it has a record that comes with it, and many landlords that I spend time with use that as a big screening mechanism. And that's really the reason, we think, families are pushed into worse housing and worse neighborhoods after their evictions.

Eviction comes with a record. Just like a criminal record can hurt you in the jobs market, eviction can hurt you in the housing market. A lot of landlords turn folks away who have an eviction, and a lot of public housing authorities do the same.

That is something I'm specifically equipped to discuss - how reputation can affect even your capacity to rent a place. Having good credit is irrelevant in the face of something like getting thrown out of court six years ago. I've really thought this out.

Historically, there would always be people among the general population who had family members, friends, cousins who'd done time or who'd been in prison.

Our criminal justice system has swallowed up too many people I love.

I've always believed in the goodness of people. I teach in prison. They all said, don't do it. Carry a gun, take Mace. Are you kidding? I guess, they're around so many criminal elements that they fear for.

We're so so interested in protecting criminals and people that want to do us harm and I think we have to go back to a little more old fashioned method of thinking, if that makes sense.

When it comes to the issue of background checks, let's be honest - background checks will never be 'universal' - because criminals will never submit to them.

Of course, as a German, I wouldn't like to tell the American people how to handle their criminal justice.

I make music that makes you dance, so I mean, it's appropriate, you know what I'm saying? I make the kind of music that DJs can grab a hold of and spin the record and people just love rocking out to the big Snoop D O double G.

For some people, their idea of getting tough is longer suspended sentences.

I either play cops or criminals - I'm either on the right side of the law or the wrong side. I gravitate toward edgier material because it suits my nature. I find it fascinating to play. I'm just that kind of person.

In many large urban areas, the majority of working age African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. It is viewed as "normal" in ghetto communities to go to prison or jail.

Every time a new record started, people exhaled with pleasure, or their bodies moved automatically. I really started getting high off of the euphoric exclamations. Every record I put on was like a baptism.

I'm for capital punishment. You've got to execute people. How else are they going to learn?

Look at the whole criminal correction game, which is a big piece of our economy. It's just an invention. Crime is being invented to put people to work.

People are saying that Rick Perry is really tough because he has executed over 200 people. And that was just while he was on vacation in Florida.

The great and constant need of those who investigate homicide and practice forensic pathology or criminal law is a warm humanism.

For too long, the victims of crime have been the forgotten persons of our criminal justice system.

That's why I'm a big supporter of the death penalty. I want to be the hangman. I would put many more people to death like the kids who want to kill other people, I'd put 'em to death. Postal workers who get arrested, they have mental problems. You know what? When you're dead you don't have a mental problem. If you take a life, I will take yours. Put me in charge, I will fix it.

There are likable characters in prison. Sometimes the worst criminals are also some of the most charming people.