Hanging was the worst use a man could be
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
There are few better measures of the
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
In jail a man has no personality. He is
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.
Reality becomes a prison to those who
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
Any punishment that does not correct,
Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.
It is not at the table, but in prison,
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
Every instance of a man's suffering the
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.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
While crime is punished it yet
While crime is punished it yet increases.
Society has used the juvenile courts to
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
Self is the only prison that can bind
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
I can tell you this on a stack of
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.
Faults of the head are punished in this
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
The idea that the sole aim of punishment
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
Prison continues, on those who are
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
In a civilized society, all crimes are
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
If you share the crime of your friend,
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
One of the problems that the marijuana
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. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and
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.
Before we can diminish our sufferings
Before we can diminish our sufferings from the ill-controlled aggressive assaults of fellow citizens, we must renounce the philosophy of punishment, the obsolete, vengeful penal attitude. In its place we would seek a comprehensive, constructive social attitude - therapeutic in some instances, restraining in some instances, but preventive in its total social impact. In the last analysis this becomes a question of personal morals and values. No matter how glorified or how piously disguised, vengeance as a human motive must be personally repudiated by each and every one of us.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
One crime has to be concealed by
One crime has to be concealed by another.
