Social Reintegration Quotes

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.

One of my half-sisters just couldn't deal with it. I think she saw me as someone she had a hard time relating to. We're super-close now, but I probably came home from Europe with weird opinions and attitudes and weird clothing. I probably looked so different to her, and I couldn't show up for things she would have liked me to. My life picked up speed, and I couldn't really stop the momentum.

Unfortunately, if the man who leaves the prison gates is just as likely or - as is sometimes grievously the case - more likely to offend as he was when he entered them, then we fail not only the individual but public safety as well.

My return to public life in a subordinate station is disagreeable to my family, and disapproved by some of my friends.

I did a lot of research on what solitary confinement does to you, how you become acclimated to being surrounded by people again after being by yourself for such a long time. It's really a horrific thing. It's definitely worth considering it as torture. We're just not meant to be in solitary confinement.

The U.S. is supposed to be a nation of second chances, but for the 70 million Americans with a criminal record, we're not doing such a great job. Even among those whose crimes were nonviolent and committed long ago, too many still bear a scarlet letter.

One of the difficulties about interviewing people in Rwanda is that the country is trying to get on with ordinary life and some people just don't want to get involved in this.

Retribution is no longer the dominant objective of the criminal law. Reformation and rehabilitation of offenders have become important goals of criminal jurisprudence.

Almost one in three Americans has had some contact with the criminal justice system. When you reach that saturation point, people begin to understand, in a very visceral way, the difficulties of reentry.

Prisons are out of public sight, and most often out of mind. But the vast majority of prisoners will at some point leave jail and rejoin our communities, which is why what happens inside matters to us all.

The end of punishment, therefore, is no other than to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will make the strongest and most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal

I think that we need to begin talking about what does it mean to create these safe spaces in our communities, to begin welcoming one another into our homes and into our communities when they're returning home from prison, people who are on the streets. We need to begin doing the work in our own communities of creating the kind of democracy that we would like to see on a larger scale.

As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you go to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book learnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

It's cool because you get to see that some of these women are there because they should be. They're actually not good people to be in society. And then, other people are there because they just made a really retarded mistake.

I look at my life today at 69 and I think about all the things that have happened after all my imprisonment. We truly live in an amazing country, America is where you can do things and pay your debt back to society and literally change your life if you want to.

Why cannot some of the money the government spends be used to take the children and youths who will become criminals, and educate them and put them into suitable environments so that they will become normal people?

When people get out of jail, it is not easy for them to find a job. It is not easy for them to return to civil society.

I feel that if I ever did adjust to prison, I could by that alone never adjust to society.

I want people to take the initiative to find veterans that need help, veterans that are suffering and in need of assistance reintegrating from combat back into society, into normal family lives and jobs. We need to take a real 'boots on the ground' approach to helping veterans in need.

For Native Americans, the most shameful and powerful corrective gesture is to literally and physically turn one's back upon a person who has transgressed, and then after they've been banished for a while, they come back into the circle and the members of the tribe say every good thing that person has ever done, because they have to be welcomed back.

Let's help those in prison maintain positive connections with their community. If we truly want re-entry to be successful, and we do, people need to come back to a place that still feels like home.

If Americans actually have the conversation about our disastrous prison policies, we'll understand the trends all move in very dangerous directions: we lock up more people, for less violent crime, at ever greater expense, breeding more dangerous criminals who often come out unemployable, violent and isiolated.

Respecting our veterans includes providing them the ways and means they so desperately need to reintegrate into our lives and serve us again as productive members of our civilian community.

When you've paid your debt to society, you need to be reconnected and re-engaged in society.

It's very difficult for felons to live in society.