On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
If somebody's in prison for non-violence, drug usage, and never committed a hard crime, they should be pardoned and let out.
My personal story is that my father was a heroin addict and a heroin dealer and has been in and out of prison my entire life, he's been arrested sixty times. I also have an older brother addicted to crack cocaine who's been in and out of prison so it was really important for me to tell a story that shows the humanity and the journey of a man getting of our prison and trying to re-acclimate into society. It's apart of our community that we have stereotypes and ideas about but we don't actually know much about it, unless we know someone personally.
We've got to practice three weeks, get the kinks out, then we've got to practice three weeks with the crew, and then go out for four months. It's just a huge chunk of time out of life.
When I was in prison, I read an article - don't be shocked when I say I was in prison. You're still in prison. That's what America means: prison.
When I was in prison, rap was all I had at that point because I was kicked out of school, all that education just gone and I couldn't come out of prison to play football - that was all over with.
Two weeks after the arrested I was on the phone with my wife and we said a prayer and I was crying and just so happy, I can't even explain it. It was euphoric. People said I went from freedom my whole life to prison, but in reality, I went from imprisonment and bondage of sin and death my whole life, to finding freedom in a prison cell.
You can be locked away in prison and be free if your mind is not a prison. Or you can be walking around with lots of credit cards and be in a prison, the prison of your own mind, the prison of your illusions.
If you're doing a prison show, HBO is the absolute best place in the world to be doing that because you're not going to have to do all that, you know, 'Prison Break' stuff where you can't really behave and speak like people do in a maximum-security prison.
The war on drugs has been the engine of mass incarceration. Drug convictions alone constituted about two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison population and more than half of the increase in the state prison population between 1985 and 2000, the period of our prison system's most dramatic expansion.
Yeah, about sixteen to twenty weeks a year. For example, we can do America in six or seven weeks. You can do Europe in three weeks; England in two weeks. South America you could do in three weeks; Asia you could do in three weeks.
How come we never use prison, the failure of prison, as a reason not to give more prison? There's never a moment where we say, 'OK, well, prison hasn't worked, so we're not going to try that again.'
I've got a lot of letters from prison. Lost was a big prison show. But it's really crazy when you get the letter that says, 'So, I'm getting out in three months, I've only been in for 17 years and I'd really like to meet you.'
It takes 4 weeks for you to notice your body changing, 8 weeks for your friends to notice, & 12 weeks for the rest of the world to notice. Give it 12 weeks. Don't quit.
I come from a place where to go to prison is like a rite of passage. It's something that you gain respect for. I used to watch people come out of prison, older cousins and the like, back in the day, and be in awe of them.
Her body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what really hurt. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison.