In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.
Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
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.
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.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
No crime has been without a precedent.
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
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.
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
