The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
No crime has been without a precedent.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
One crime has to be concealed by another.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour -- for the horse was soon tackled -- was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.
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.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
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.
The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
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.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
