Youth Rehabilitation Quotes

To criminally prosecute a child not old enough to go to the school prom makes no sense, you get much more cooperation from a victim if you give them a safe harbor, a place to live, job training, an education.

Let's figure out ways of keeping our children out of the juvenile justice system and in the classroom so that they'll thrive. Because if you're in the juvenile justice system, the chances of your going into the adult penal system are greatly increased.

There is a tendency to dehumanize kids that commit crimes. The system is focused on punishment, not on rehabilitation. These kids are the most misunderstood and most cruelly treated.

Despite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world, the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous?

The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.'

Once a week we go to juvenile hall and talk to boys there. Just go and spend a day in the juvenile courts.

Many men of excellent wits and of divers singular gifts, overthrown by ... by some folly of youth, that are not able to live in England, may there be raised again, and do their country good service; and many needful uses there may (to great purpose) require the saving of great numbers, that for trifles may otherwise be devoured by the gallows. Many soldiers and servitors, in the end of the wars, that might be hurtful to this realm, may there be unladen, to the common profit and quiet of this realm, and to our foreign benefi there, as they may be employed. The frye [children] of the wandering beggars of England, that grow up idly, and hurteful and burdenous to this realm, may there be unladen, better bred up, and may people waste countries to the home and foreign benefit, and to their own more happy state.

The children - I call them children when they're under 18 - are hungry for that love. The drugs are just a sleep that you can't even wake up from, because you might remember what you did when you were there. There's no place for them - there should be a rehabilitation center on every corner, along with McDonald's and the banks. This is serious business. The waiting lists are incredible. I mean, it's terrible. It's really terrible.

We owe our children an environment in which they can flourish, and where law enforcement, the justice system, and society as offers them a fresh start, not a jail cell.

The thing about youthful offenders is that no one seems to care about them. Most people don't like adolescents - even the good ones can be snarky and unpleasant. Combine the antipathy we feel toward the average teenager with the fear inspired by youth violence, and you have a population that no one wants to deal with.

One thousand dollars invested in salvaging an unemployable youth can return forty thousand dollars or more in his lifetime.

In my view, one of the major reasons that we have so many people in jail is that we have turned our backs on a lot young people.

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?

Custodial education does not have as its objective the education of youth but rather social control over them. It suppresses rather than stimulates their intellectual and physical energies.

But there's a reason that we have different laws for juveniles than we do for adults. And it's because kids are not liable for the things they do in the way that adults are, because we think that kids are different.

And although I broke a lot of laws as a teenager, I straightened out immediately upon turning eighteen, when I realized the state had a legal right to execute me.

A lot of times when kids get in trouble they might get labeled or judged for mistakes that they made at a young age.

You reach a point where you say you're not going to do juveniles any longer.

I was lucky. My grandmother stepped up for me and said she would take responsibility for me and a compassionate juvenile judge took a chance and gave me one. They were getting ready to send me away to do real time, but they sent me instead to a juvenile alternative day school. And I guess that was the beginning of my turnaround.

Working in a juvenile detention center, being a probation officer for at-risk youths, I'll do something like that. Something nice and stable.

Until you're grown-up they send you to reform school. After you're grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.

Young persons, because of their immaturity, may not fully comprehend the consequences of their actions and should therefore benefit from less severe sanctions than adults. More importantly, it reflects the firm belief that young persons are more susceptible to change, and thus have a greater potential for rehabilitation than adults.

Jail is no place for a young fellow. There's no advancement.

I would hope that the staffs at juvenile detention centers and reform schools are carefully chosen so that there is a community of support and hope.

Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child.