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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
The reformative effect of punishment is
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
It isn't true that convicts live like
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
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.
There are few better measures of the
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.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
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.
I sometimes wish that people would put a
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
A sick person is a prisoner.
A sick person is a prisoner.
It was only when I lay there on the
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
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.
Do not lay on the multitude the blame
Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.
He who does not prevent a crime when he
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
Punishment, that is the justice for the
Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
They're not supposed to show prison
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us,
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!
I submit that an individual who breaks a
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
One of the problems that the marijuana
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
I am certain that nothing has done so
I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.
History is full of people who went to
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
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.
Prison makes you a better judge of
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
