The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
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.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.
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.
Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choice we've always had: work, or prison.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
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.
