The torment of human frustration,
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Some laws of state aimed at curbing
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
Definition, rationality, and structure
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
Prison continues, on those who are
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
If two people fight on the street, whose
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
Faults of the head are punished in this
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
The solution to our drug problem is not
The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.
I am an expert of electricity. My father
I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.
I asked a man in prison once how he
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
One of the many lessons that one learns
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
Vices are not crimes.
Vices are not crimes.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
It is the deed that teaches, not the
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
One crime has to be concealed by
One crime has to be concealed by another.
When it comes to freedom, we are but
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
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.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
No written law has been more binding
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
If we look at Houston, which is a very
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
