The uneven impact of actual enforcement
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
Money will determine whether the accused
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
The worst of prison life, he thought,
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
When it comes to freedom, we are but
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
Reality becomes a prison to those who
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
Civilization is maintained by a very few
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a
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.
I never told a victim story about my
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
Once we are destined to live out our
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
Since 1957, black people have
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
No crime has been without a precedent.
No crime has been without a precedent.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail,
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
It is safer that a bad man should not be
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
Fast closed with double grills
Fast closed with double grills
And triple gates – the cell
To wicked souls is hell;
But to a mind that's innocent
'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
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.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Federal prison, if you get any of it,
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
Society has used the juvenile courts to
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
