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.
The most anxious man in a prison is the
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
No man survives when freedom fails. The
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
Justice is justice though it's always
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
The common argument that crime is caused
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Educate your children to self-control,
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
Before we can diminish our sufferings
Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
Organized crime in America takes in over
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
It is not at the table, but in prison,
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
I can tell you this on a stack of
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
The idea that the sole aim of punishment
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
Experts and the educated elite have
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
History is full of people who went to
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
No crime has been without a precedent.
No crime has been without a precedent.
I submit that an individual who breaks a
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Crimes lead one into another; they who
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
Money will determine whether the accused
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.
The object of punishment is prevention
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
A just chastisement may benefit a man,
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
If punishment reaches not the mind and
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
