Quotes

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

There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.

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

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

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

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

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.

He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.

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

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

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.

Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.

If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.

Fast closed with double grills
And triple gates – the cell
To wicked souls is hell;
But to a mind that's innocent
'Tis only iron, wood and stone.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

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

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.

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.

The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.

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

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