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.
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
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.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
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.
The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
