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.
A sick person is a prisoner.
A sick person is a prisoner.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Definition, rationality, and structure
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch;
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
The law does not pretend to punish
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
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.
I was in prison, and you came unto me.
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
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
He who does not prevent a crime when he
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
A country is in a bad state, which is
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.
I know not whether laws be right, or
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.
Crimes lead one into another; they who
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
While crime is punished it yet
While crime is punished it yet increases.
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.
The torment of human frustration,
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
To make punishments efficacious, two
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
If you share the crime of your friend,
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Here the great art lies, to discern in
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
There are only two places in the world
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
I have never been contained except I
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
Prison continues, on those who are
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
