The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
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.
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
~Jim Bakker
No crime has been without a precedent.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
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!
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
A sick person is a prisoner.
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.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
