Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other; they are worse than ever when at the termination of their punishment they re-enter society.
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
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.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
I have been studying how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world; Shut up in the prison of their own consciences.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
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.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
