What restrains us from killing is partly
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
The public have more interest in the
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
He who does not prevent a crime when he
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Law is merely the expression of the will
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.
Care should be taken that the punishment
Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.
If you share the crime of your friend,
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
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.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
I can tell you this on a stack of
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
Here the great art lies, to discern in
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
The perfection of a thing consists in
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
When you are younger you get blamed for
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
I wrote a million words in the first
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
On a planet that increasingly resembles
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
Oh who is that young sinner with the
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 man will be imprisoned in a room with
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
A just chastisement may benefit a man,
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
Two men look out the same prison bars;
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
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.
While we have prisons it matters little
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
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.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
