Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
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.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
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.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
