Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
Fast closed with double grills And triple gates–the cell To wicked souls is hell; But to a mind that's innocent 'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
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.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.
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.
Vices are not crimes.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
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.”
