Incarceration Quotes

While mass incarceration is a national crisis, it was built locally.

— James Forman, Jr

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

— Michelle Alexander

Race determines everything in the criminal justice system

— Mark Geragos

The criminal justice system is rigged against African Americans.

— Eddie Griffin

Mass incarceration is the most pressing racial justice issue of our time.

— Michelle Alexander

We incarcerate more African-American men today than were slaves in 1850.

— Marianne Williamson

The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.

— Barry McCaffrey

Monastic incarceration is castration.

— Victor Hugo

“People of color are actually no more likely to be guilty of drug crimes and many other offenses than whites.”

— Michelle Alexander

Nationwide, 1 in 3 black men can expect to serve time behind bars, but the rates are far higher in segregated and…

— Michelle Alexander

We should not have drug laws or a court system that disproportionately punishes the black community.

— Rand Paul

Just as incarceration has come to define the lives of low-income black men, eviction is defining the lives of low-income black women.

— Matthew Desmond

There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.

— John Legend

We're already going down that path with illegal drug use and incarceration. I can't imagine it getting any worse.

— Greg Gutfeld

“Joe closed his hand over the watch and it was still warm from his father's pocket, ticking against his palm like a…

— Dennis Lehane

She was there through my incarceration I wanna show the nation my appreciation.

— Shaggy

The Democratic leadership has expressed great concern for the incarceration rate in the commonwealth in the last few years. Now they want…

— Bill Vaughan

It appears that the murder rate inside prisons is ten times higher than that outside prisons. It must be due to all…

— Jeff Cooper

The criminalization of Black life was something specific to the United States in the post-Reconstruction period and there's something like it happening…

— Noam Chomsky

Most criminologists today will acknowledge that crime rates and incarceration rates in the United States have had relatively little to do with…

— Michelle Alexander

“Oklahoma has the highest female incarceration rate in the country, and nearly thirty per cent of female inmates in the state have…

— Anonymous

We are the in midst of a bipartisan moment as it relates to criminal justice reform and dealing with mass incarceration in…

— Hakeem Jeffries

“That’s the biggest danger of incarceration: you get used to it. It’s not the goon in the bathroom with a blade hidden…

— Jacques Pauw

The U.S. prison system, over all, disproportionately affects black and brown people, but people of color are overrepresented to a greater degree…

— Clint Smith

“Nothing about the daily workings of the prison system focuses its inhabitants’ attention on what life back on the outside, as a…

— Piper Kerman

In other words, in the same way that mass incarceration surged because of a real thing, it's finally starting to ebb because…

— Kevin Drum

We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country. It's destroying families, it's destroying communities and we're the most incarcerated country…

— John Legend

“We cannot incarcerate ourselves out of addiction. Addiction is a medical crisis that—when it comes to nonviolent offenders—warrants medical interventions, not incarceration.…

— Dominique DuBois Gilliard

“In the false American imagination, West Virginia is a joke or else it's a charity case; but more than anything it is…

— Lauren F. Winner

Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a…

— Michelle Alexander

“Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot all employed mass imprisonment, each presiding over a process that arrested and incarcerated millions. Such systems are…

— David Cay Johnston

If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the…

— Michelle Alexander

“The notion that a vast gulf exists between "criminals" and those of us who have never served time in prison is a…

— Michelle Alexander

“If an inmate swears at a guard, fights, or hides contraband like cigarettes or candy [Sheriff Arpaio has banned coffee, cigarettes, hot…

— Jane Evelyn Atwood

“The impact of the new caste system is most tragically felt among the young. In Chicago (as in other cities across the…

— Michelle Alexander

“More than 2 million people found themselves behind bars at the turn of the twenty-first century, and millions more were relegated to…

— Michelle Alexander

“Between 1990 and 2005, a new prison opened in the United States every ten days. Prison growth and the resulting “prison-industrial complex”—the…

— Bryan Stevenson

“It is fair to say that we have witnessed an evolution in the United States from a racial caste system based entirely…

— Michelle Alexander

“If the incarceration experience doesn't break your spirit, it changes you in a way that you lose many fears. You begin to…

— Michael Lewis

“Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing…

— Bryan Stevenson