Quotes

The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.

In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.

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.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.

In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.

Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.

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.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.

A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.

It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.

Pardon is the virtue of victory.

To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.

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.

Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.