Quotes

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

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 torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.

No crime has been without a precedent.

I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

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.

We are prisoners of ideas.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.

Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

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

Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year. This is quite a profitable sum, especially when one considers that the Mafia spends very little for office supplies.

The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.

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.