Colin Powell on Crime Secretary of State (Pres. Bush Cabinet)

Building jails is a temporary fix, not the solution

A: I think there’s a change taking place and people realize we can’t keep building jails. This isn’t the solution. This is a temporary fix on the problem. If we want to stop building jails, we’ve got to get back to building children.

Once you get kids pointed in that direction, you’re not going to have that problem with jails at the end of the day. And so, what I was trying to say to the party is why you may have had to build a jail that’s not the ultimate solution. The ultimate solution is to build our children. They should cheer that. They ought to cheer that. I think they’re seeing the party come forward with policies that will do that.

Build our children instead of building jails

The problem is as simple and as direct as this: We either get back to the task of building our children the way we know how, or we’re going to keep building jails in America. And it’s time to stop building jails in America and get back to the task of building our children.