The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
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.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
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.
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.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
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.
