The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
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.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
Clemency alone makes us equal to the gods.
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.
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.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released. You're an animal in a cage and you're treated like one.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
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!
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
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.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
