Quotes

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

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.

If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!

It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.

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.

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.

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.