One should respect public opinion
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible
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.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
Society has used the juvenile courts to
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Any punishment that does not correct,
Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.
We judge ourselves by what we feel
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
There's no greater threat to our
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.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of
Women have worked hard; starved in
Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.
Intellectual despair results in neither
Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
It is better that ten guilty persons
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
The contagion of crime is like that of
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.
There is no peace because the making of
There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.
He who does not prevent a crime when he
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
He had drawn many a thousand of these
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.
There is a point at which even justice
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Our task must be to free ourselves from
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.
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 never saw a man who looked With such a
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
They're not supposed to show prison
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
Every crime has, in the moment of its
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
