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.
It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
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.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
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.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.
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.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
If you treat prisoners well, they will be less angry, less inclined to violence inside prison, less likely to provoke violent actions by guards, less likely to have reason to file brutality lawsuits that cost taxpayers a bundle and waste administrators' time. And most important, well-treated prisoners will be less likely to leave prison angrier, more vicious and more inclined to criminal behavior than when they went in.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
