Quotes

It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.

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

Crimes generally punish themselves.

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.

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

The solution to our drug problem is not in incarceration.

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.

He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.

No man should be judge in his own case.

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

The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.

Virtue pardons the wicked, as the sandal-tree perfumes the axe which strikes it.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

Do not lay on the multitude the blame that is due to a few.

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.

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.

I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

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!

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

If you share the crime of your friend, you make it your own.