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.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
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.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
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.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
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.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.
