We have initiated programs for re-entry
We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.
In jail a man has no personality. He is
In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
Do not lay on the multitude the blame
Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.
In prisons, those things withheld from
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
It was only when I lay there on the
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
Law is merely the expression of the will
Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
I have never been contained except I
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
The only effect of public punishment is
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
The object of punishment is prevention
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
The world is a prison in which solitary
The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.
No man should be judge in his own case.
No man should be judge in his own case.
We who live in prison, and in whose
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
By noiselessly going to a prison a
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
He had drawn many a thousand of these
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
