I have never been contained except I made the prison.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
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.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
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.
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.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
