America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
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.
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.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so to be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
I don't like being famous - it is like a prison. And driving for Ferrari would make it far worse.
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
Crimes generally punish themselves.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
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!
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
