Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
The uneven impact of actual enforcement measures tends to mirror and reinforce more general patterns of discrimination (along socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, sexual, and perhaps generational lines) within the society. As a consequence, such enforcement (ineffective as it may be in producing conformity) almost certainly reinforces feelings of alienation already prevalent within major segments of the population.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
One crime is everything; two nothing.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!
If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows.
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
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.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
