The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
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.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.
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 thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
I have never been contained except I made the prison.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.
The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.
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.
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!
The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.
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.
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.
Body is a home, a prison and a grave.
