No man survives when freedom fails. The
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
There is no greater punishment of
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
The uneven impact of actual enforcement
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
The power of punishment is to silence,
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Society has used the juvenile courts to
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
I don't like being famous - it is like a
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
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.
Educate your children to self-control,
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
The law does not pretend to punish
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
Before we can diminish our sufferings
Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
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.
One of the many lessons that one learns
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Crimes lead one into another; they who
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
The number of laws is constantly growing
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.
Experts and the educated elite have
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
It is better that ten guilty persons
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
It is impossible to go through life
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
In prisons, those things withheld from
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
It is the deed that teaches, not the
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
