I think rehabilitation is a tough challenge on any given day, but the minute you snuff out the light at the end of the tunnel, or make that tunnel so long that you're really removing hope, I think you really run the risk of not only ending the hope for rehabilitation—and I agree sometimes it is just a hope—but also increasing the probability of violence within institutions, of losing control within the institution, because a person has nothing to work towards. Taking someone who is 25 years old, who committed the most horrific act, and saying, “If you are good, really good, at age 75 we can try you out for parole”, that person has no hope. They won't be bothered by any discipline. They're not going to care. There's just nothing, really, to live for at that stage. It's just unrealistic.
On December 2nd, 2010. See this statement in context.