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.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
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.
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
