In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
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 world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
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.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
We are prisoners of ideas.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
Prison, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible because they are the crossroads of all the evil in the world. One cannot commit evil in hell.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
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!
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
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.
I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
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.
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.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
