The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
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.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
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.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
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.
We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
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.
