Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
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.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
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.
America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
No crime has been without a precedent.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
