Quotes

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

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

The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.

So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.

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

The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.

No crime has been without a precedent.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.

The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

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.

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.

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

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?

The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.