Quotes

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.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

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

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

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.

You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.

What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.

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

In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.

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!

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.