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.
I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
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.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
Overlook our deeds, since you know that crime was absent from our inclination.
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.
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.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
He who profits by a crime commits it.
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.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
