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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
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.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
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.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
If you treat prisoners well, they will be less angry, less inclined to violence inside prison, less likely to provoke violent actions by guards, less likely to have reason to file brutality lawsuits that cost taxpayers a bundle and waste administrators' time. And most important, well-treated prisoners will be less likely to leave prison angrier, more vicious and more inclined to criminal behavior than when they went in.
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
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.
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
