One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
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.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
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.
