I knew hundreds and hundreds of women like me, who had traveled in and out of prison in a revolving door. They needed support and help just like I had received. And it could make a difference, just like it had made a difference in my life. I wanted to see them come back to the community and have a chance at a different life, too.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of support for individuals reintegrating into society after incarceration.
Susan Burton's quote reflects on her experience and the experiences of many women who cycle through the prison system. It advocates for the necessity of support and resources to help these women transition back into the community successfully, allowing them the opportunity to lead different lives instead of falling back into old patterns. This highlights the systemic issues faced by those who have been incarcerated and the transformative power of compassion and assistance.
In practice
This quote can be used during a community meeting discussing rehabilitation programs.
People are released from prison so unprepared. They give you $200. We call it gate money. And you have to pay for a bus ticket back to L.A. You get off the Greyhound bus, downtown Skid Row, and you're supposed to make a life from that.
Many times, I left the prison thinking, 'I'm smart. I can make it. I won't get caught up again.' But you get off downtown Skid Row, and you're a target for all of the environmental harms in that area. The pain and trauma in that area is so thick, you can almost reach your hand out and touch it.
We're willing to spend countless dollars putting people who need help in cages, and then when they get out we say you can't have a job, and you can't have housing, and because you don't have either, we're going to take your kids, too.
Tremendous changes are taking place in our country, eradicating the concept of second-class citizenship.
Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. Since fight club, I can wiggle half the teeth in my jaw. Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer. Maybe self-destruction is the answer.
If we want to create change, we all have to be feminists - men, women, everyone needs to acknowledge that. Sometimes I have more in common with the man than I do the woman in the room.
What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.
Throughout the 20th century, we created wealth through vertically integrated corporations. Now, we create wealth through networks. We are at a turning point in human history, where the industrial age has finally run out of gas.
All destruction, by violent revolution or however it be, is but new creation on a wider scale.
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