Quotes

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.

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

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

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.

When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.

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

And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.

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

If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.

Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

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

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

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.

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

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

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