Quotes

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.

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.

I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.

A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.

One crime is everything; two nothing.

Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.

I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.