Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
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.
I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
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.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
