Quotes

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

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

Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.

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.

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

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

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

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.

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

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

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

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

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

Justice renders to every one his due.

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

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!

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

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.