Parole Quotes

Non-custodial sentences are certainly something to look at, more support in the community rather than within prisons is something we have to look at. There will of course still be women who need to be in prison, serious offenders, but I think there is scope to look at that number and I think that number could come down.

Personally, I am opposed to capital punishment. . . . If there were some way devised to prevent . . . the extension of executive clemency to men who are sent up for life, if there were some way to keep them in for life, then I believe the public would be satisfied with the abolition of capital punishment. . . . In 1907 I was appointed to prosecute a man for one of the foulest cases of wife murder that I ever knew. . . . When the jury went out the first ballot was eleven for hanging and one for life imprisonment. . . . The second ballot was twelve for life imprisonment. . . . It is not seventeen years since I tried that case and yet this man is walking the streets to-day a free man by the action of some subsequent governor of Indiana, who pardoned or paroled over my protest. There will either have to be some way provided to keep these fellows in for life when they are once sent there, or those of us who are opposed to hanging will have to give our unwilling consent to the execution of these wilful and deliberate murderers.

In 44 states, the [parole] board is wholly appointed by the governor, and the well-paid positions can become gifts for former aides and political allies. While some state laws require basic qualifications, these statutes are often vaguely worded, with language that is easily sidestepped. Many states have no minimum requirements at all.

These men who come out of prison have offended against society, they cannot expect that society will immediately forget their offense. On the other hand, for its own protection, society would do well to make it possible at least for such men and women as really wish to go straight, to go straight …. I wish that every community from which individuals go to prison might have an organization which would be notified when they are returned to society. It would then be this organization's responsibility to find these individuals a job, suited to their capacities and training, which would bring them a decent living. At the same time some one person beside the parole officer who has a few hundred people to look after, should be responsible for helping these men, and women too, to adjust back to their environment. They must begin to do things for others and to be useful outside of their actual work, or they will not feel themselves anchored permanently to their good intentions.

Yeah, I've gotten a few letters from prison.

I left the world of jail with plenty of relief but, more than anything, with a sense of unease that I still can't quite shake.

Any politician who wants to eliminate parole just doesn’t understand law enforcement.

I'm on probation, so I can't even pick my nose the right way.

The story of the eighties will be the story of the Reagan administration and the many men and women who served in it, some of whom are already out on parole.

How come life in prison doesn't mean life? Until it does, we're not ready to do away with the death penalty. Stop thinking in terms of "punishment" for a minute and think in terms of safeguarding innocent people from incorrigible murderers. Americans have a right to go about their lives without worrying about these people being back out on the street. So until we can make sure they're off the street permanently, we have to grit our teeth and put up with the death penalty

None of my peers avoided prison. None of 'em.

I'm a felon. I get pulled over all the time.

So for you people who are filled with fear that I might someday be released: breathe easy, I don't see it happening.

First we pin the convict's badge on him: then we examine his case.

I'm no hardened criminal who the authorities need to hunt.

I can confirm that I have been released from prison.

I've never been jailed for a crime of violence.

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 once asked him what came at the end of the sentence... and he said "parole".

My father was jailed off and on for seven years.

As a law-enforcement official, as a politician, you are always going to have in the back of your mind the fear that someone you release will end up committing another crime, potentially a serious crime, during a period when they otherwise would have been incarcerated.

Letting people out of prison without professional staff to oversee their rehabilitation is irresponsible.

I went to prison, I paid my bill.

I was gladly cuffed, shackled, loaded into the caged bus and driven through the main gate of Bare Hill Correctional Facility for what I pray to God will be forever.