Wherever any one is against his will,
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
You stuff somebody into the American
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
The English laws punish vice; the
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Let us remember that justice must be
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Prison makes you a better judge of
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
Adversities such as being homeless and
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
Fast closed with double grills
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.
There is a point at which even justice
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.
We who live in prison, and in whose
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.
It isn't true that convicts live like
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
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.
Civilization is maintained by a very few
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.
No man should be judge in his own case.
No man should be judge in his own case.
I never saw a man who looked With such a
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
There are only two places in the world
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
If two people fight on the street, whose
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
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.
It was only when I lay there on the
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
We have initiated programs for re-entry
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.
The power of punishment is to silence,
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Why would anyone expect him to come out
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
No obligation to justice does force a
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
