If two people fight on the street, whose
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.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom
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.
If punishment reaches not the mind and
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
The contagion of crime is like that of
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.
The refined punishments of the spiritual
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
We who live in prison, and in whose
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
There is no peace because the making of
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.
A country is in a bad state, which is
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
One of the problems that the marijuana
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.
To try to raise a son from inside the
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
It is more dangerous that even a guilty
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
One of the many lessons that one learns
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
I asked a man in prison once how he
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Two men look out the same prison bars;
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Since 1957, black people have
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
The degree of civilization in a society
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Laws do not persuade just because they
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
There are few better measures of the
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.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature,
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Assassination is the extreme form of
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a
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.
