Reducing Recidivism Quotes

Ignorance has been well represented under the similitude of a dungeon, where, though it is full of life, yet darkness and silence reign. But in society the bars and locks have been broken; the dungeon itself is demolished; the prisoners are out; they are in the midst of us. We have no security but to teach and renovate them.

A reform in the system of criminal jurisprudence, by which the death penalty shall no longer be inflicted . . . and by which our so-called prisons shall be virtually transformed into vast reformatory workshops, from which the unfortunate may emerge to be useful members of society, instead of the alienated citizens they now are.

In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.

Experience shows that the frequent use of severe punishment has never rendered a people better. The death of a criminal is a less effective means of restraining crimes than the permanent example of a man deprived of his liberty during the whole of his life to make amends for the injury he has done to the public.

Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.

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.

You have an electorate [in America] that wants to see people who are not tough on crime.

The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.

If you can turn a murderer into a mere thief, you are making progress.

Where ex-offenders are genuinely trying to turn a corner and live free from crime, it is vital we do all we can to support them.

Do those serving life sentences deserve access to educational opportunities never having a future beyond bars? The answer is yes and necessitates that in-prison education serves additional goals beyond reducing recidivism.

It's time to end the era of mass incarceration. We need a true national debate about how to reduce our prison population.

We cannot just say law and order. We have to say - we have to come forward with a plan that is going to divert people from the criminal justice system, deal with mandatory minimum sentences, which have put too many people away for too long for doing too little.