Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
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.
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
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.
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.
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.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
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.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
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.
