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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
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.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
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.
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
A sick person is a prisoner.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
