Quotes

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.

While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

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.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

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.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

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.

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.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

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

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