One crime has to be concealed by another.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.
I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
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.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
They're not supposed to show prison films in prison. Especially ones that are about escaping.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Fast closed with double grills And triple gates–the cell To wicked souls is hell; But to a mind that's innocent 'Tis only iron, wood and stone.
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.
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.
Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.
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.
A variety in punishment is of utility, as well as a proportion.
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
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.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
