Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
Crimes generally punish themselves.
Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.
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.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
If you treat prisoners well, they will be less angry, less inclined to violence inside prison, less likely to provoke violent actions by guards, less likely to have reason to file brutality lawsuits that cost taxpayers a bundle and waste administrators' time. And most important, well-treated prisoners will be less likely to leave prison angrier, more vicious and more inclined to criminal behavior than when they went in.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
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.
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
No man should be judge in his own case.
In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism.
No man survives when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cry 'appease, appease' are hanged by those they tried to please.
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.
