Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.
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.
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.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
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 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.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
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.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
