Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
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.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
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.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
