Quotes

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.

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

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

The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.

I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.

Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

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

I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.

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.

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.

Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

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.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

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.

Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

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.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

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

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.