Helen Prejean Quotes

Nearly all inmates are drawn from the ranks of the powerless and the poor. A child of privilege frequently receives the benefit of the doubt; a child of poverty seldom does.

Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.

We are also further than ever from equality of opportunity.

I'm concerned about - the oppression of the poor.

We love wealth, and we hate poor people. I know people who work in TV news who have actually been told to do stand-ups rather than put interviews with poor people on the air. We physically don't want to look at them.

Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it.

It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them.

Too often, wealthy people born on third base blithely criticize the poor for failing to hit home runs. The advantaged sometimes perceive empathy as a sign of muddle-headed weakness rather than as a marker of civilization.

There is this notion that the lives of the comfortable-off middle class don't merit being treated seriously and with compassion.

The issue of wealth inequality is ... the great moral issue of our time.

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! – and listens to their testimony.

There is too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those who cannot.

The poor will never cease out of the land.

There is no “equality before the law” possible but between men economically free.

Government becomes a burden only when it functions on behalf of the poor.

We cannot rebuild the American Dream here at home by catering to the voices of the privileged and powerful.

My perspective is never gonna change on that... We've got to do a much better job to take care of poor people, because you cannot put all the poor people in bad neighborhoods, send them to bad schools, and say, 'Good luck in life.' That's just not right.

I don't believe we need to choose between addressing economic issues and addressing issues of social or racial justice.

We need to ask ourselves: What use is our scientific endeavor and innovation when they are inaccessible to the people who need them the most? It is only when the benefits of research reach the person on the lowest rung of the economic ladder that it can be considered to have delivered true value.

In a system that disproportionately harms poor people and people of color, too many Americans have lost faith in the essential American principle of equal justice under law.

Nobody talks about the poor. Everybody talks about the middle class and just kinda want to ignore that the poor exist. And you cannot ignore that they exist if you want to help them.

Only the rich can get justice, only the poor cannot escape it.

We need a more holistic approach in which we take account of society's most vulnerable sectors. We shouldn't just do broad averaging of country statistics but rather we need to disaggregate the data to determine where the resources are most needed. In most cases, it's usually the reverse: those who are most marginalized - minorities and rural and remote communities - get the least attention and money.

In the United States today we have the most unequal wealth and income distribution of any major country on earth - worse than at any time since the 1920s. This is an economy that must be changed in fundamental ways.

Only poor people go to jail.