Quotes

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.

To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to a bramble bush.

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.

The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.

You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.

One crime has to be concealed by another.

To trial bring her stolen charms, and let her prison be my arms.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.

No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.

We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.

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.”

Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.

The public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.

Only free men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

To be in prison so long, it's difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

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.

There is a point at which even justice does injury.