I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.
I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
If you treat prisoners well, they will be less angry, less inclined to violence inside prison, less likely to provoke violent actions by guards, less likely to have reason to file brutality lawsuits that cost taxpayers a bundle and waste administrators' time. And most important, well-treated prisoners will be less likely to leave prison angrier, more vicious and more inclined to criminal behavior than when they went in.
