Quotes

America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.

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!

There is a point at which even justice does injury.

To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker

The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

One crime is everything; two nothing.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

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.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

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.

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

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.

Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.

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

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

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