If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
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.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.
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.
On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
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.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
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.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
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.
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
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.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
