The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Fast closed with double grills And triple gates–the cell To wicked souls is hell; But to a mind that's innocent 'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
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.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
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.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
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.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
