Quotes

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.

Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

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.

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

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

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

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.

To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.

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.

There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

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

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