One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.
Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
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
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
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.
There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
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.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
Man is condemned to be free.
