Quotes

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

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%.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40

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.

Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.

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

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

To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.

The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.

We are prisoners of ideas.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

He who profits by a crime commits it.

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.

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

Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.