Prisons don't rehabilitate, they don't punish, they don't protect, so what the hell do they do?
There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war - at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.
If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.
Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.
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.
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.
What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
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.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
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.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.
No obligation to justice does force a man to be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
Well does Heaven have care that no man secures happiness by crime.
In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.
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.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
