Quotes

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

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

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.

The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.

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

Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.

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

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

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

He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.

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

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they’ll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things.

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.

There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

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

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!