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.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
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.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
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.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
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.
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 don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
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.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
