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.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
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.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.
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.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
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.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
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.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
