In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
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.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they’ll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
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 object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
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.
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.
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
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.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
