Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
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.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
No crime has been without a precedent.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
Vices are not crimes.
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.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
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.
They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!
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.
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.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
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.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
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.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
