When you are younger you get blamed for
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.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and
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.
Adversities such as being homeless and
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
What restrains us from killing is partly
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
Laws do not persuade just because they
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
On average, drug prisoners spend more
On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.
I was in prison, and you came unto me.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
Mere factual innocence is no reason not
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
Educate your children to self-control,
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
Federal prison, if you get any of it,
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
The common argument that crime is caused
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
While crime is punished it yet
While crime is punished it yet increases.
Prison continues, on those who are
Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
I asked a man in prison once how he
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.
It is the spirit and not the form of law
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
Corporal punishment falls far more
Corporal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
The reformative effect of punishment is
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
I am certain that nothing has done so
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.
The world is a prison in which solitary
The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.
The English laws punish vice; the
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Assassination is the extreme form of
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner
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.”
