Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
Vices are not crimes.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
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.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
