Quotes

Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.

Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

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

If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.

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.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.

The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.

I have never been contained except I made the prison.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.