America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
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.
Man is condemned to be free.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
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.
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
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 only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
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.
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.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
