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.
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.
Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
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.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
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.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
