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 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.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
It is the spirit and not the form of law
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
In jail a man has no personality. He is
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.
The worst of prison life, he thought,
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
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.
I never told a victim story about my
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
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.
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 best situation of all, and one
The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.
Vices are not crimes.
Vices are not crimes.
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.
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.
A country is in a bad state, which is
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
It isn't true that convicts live like
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
I just remember that disturbing feeling
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
It is better that ten guilty persons
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
The object of punishment is prevention
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
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.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
If we look at Houston, which is a very
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
