When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
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.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
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.
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.
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.
Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen?
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
