The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
We are prisoners of ideas.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
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.
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.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
No man should be judge in his own case.
No crime has been without a precedent.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
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.
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.
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.
