Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
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
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
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.
