Quotes

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.

Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.

Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.

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.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

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.

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.

A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.

On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.

No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they’ll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things.

I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

We are prisoners of ideas.

Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.