A Quote by Dahlia Lithwick
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.
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We Americans are not an inherently more violent people than folks in other countries. We're not inherently more prone to mental health problems. The main difference that sets our nation apart is what makes us so susceptible to so many mass shootings is that we don't do enough, we don't take the basic commonsense actions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. What's different in America is it's easy to get your hands on a gun.
Too often, we see violent criminals return to the streets they have previously terrorized, only to commit more violent crimes.
I love when violent, dangerous art is done by people who are not violent and dangerous. I love that when George Romero was making 'Dawn of the Dead,' he was coaching his son's little league team.
The majority of our criminals that we lock up are non-violent offenders.
Incarcerating non-violent offenders in the same population as more dangerous criminals has the effect of inculcating the former into a culture of criminality common among the latter, making them more of a risk to public safety upon release than when they originally went in.
If you ask the average person they'd tell ya, "Naw, it's much more dangerous," despite the fact that violent crime has dropped precipitously.
I don't know why I am internally a violent person. I don't have the normal nerve endings most people do, which was very good for me as a pilot in Viet Nam. When most people are afraid, I'm actually quite excited about things. The more dangerous something is, the happier I am.
The prison system today is so messed up. Some people say, "Some criminals are made in prison," and it's actually true. The numbers and the facts are very clear. Almost 70% re-offend, and they re-offend, more often than not, with a worse crime than what they were put away for. And what's mind-boggling is that it's not in anyone's interests. It's a waste of enormous resources, with money, but also all of these young men and women that have their lives ruined.
If you don't educate people well, then you're going to have a lot of violent, angry young men and women. You can go around saying they're all so violent, just throw them in jail, this is an underclass, what can you do? You can create fear. The issue of violence is very suitable for a repressive society. Then you can have more legislation, more police, more laws to fight crime, when all you need to do is to encourage people in a different way.
As a Republican Party, we're going to have to have a conversation about it. But I think, ultimately, a majority of Republicans, like a majority of Americans, don't want to let violent felons out of prison.
I don't believe that art makes people violent in any way. I don't. But I do believe art can show people how to be violent and that's much more dangerous in a way.
Prison is an important part of life. We can't have violent people running around in the streets. (3 out of 4 federal prisoners are serving time for non-violent crimes.) Most competent and qualified kindergarden teachers can tell you who the 5 kids are in his or her class likely to wind up in prison 15 - 20 years from now.
I just don't understand, if they see numbers [of CEO salaries]that represent people, how they can somehow skirt around that and morally justify taking or ruining those lives and leaving them with nothing. That, to me, is violent crime. It's certainly more violent than selling grams of pot to other adults.
I'm not guaranteeing what we come up with will be better for the planet. There is ethanol, for instance, which actually nets out with more pollution at greater expense, and more harm to the environment than petroleum, but we'll come up with something.
There is a report that says that kids who watch violent TV programs tend to be more violent when they grow up. But did the TV cause the violence, or do violent children preferentially enjoy watching violent programs?
Defenders of the status quo will often try to mislead the public by saying, "Just look at our state prisons: nearly half of the inmates are violent offenders. This system is about protecting the public from violent crime." This type of statement is highly misleading.
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