The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
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.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
I was in prison, and you came unto me. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
~(Jesus Christ) Matthew 25:36, 40
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
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.
Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.
Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
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.”
We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.
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.
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
Justice renders to every one his due.
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong.
When it comes to freedom, we are but prisoners of our own desires.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
