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.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
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.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
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 worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.
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.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
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.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
