The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
If you treat prisoners well, they will be less angry, less inclined to violence inside prison, less likely to provoke violent actions by guards, less likely to have reason to file brutality lawsuits that cost taxpayers a bundle and waste administrators' time. And most important, well-treated prisoners will be less likely to leave prison angrier, more vicious and more inclined to criminal behavior than when they went in.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Reality becomes a prison to those who can’t get out of it.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
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.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Vices are not crimes.
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
