Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
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.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Any punishment that does not correct, that can merely rouse rebellion in whoever has to endure it, is a piece of gratuitous infamy which makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, good sense and reason, nay a hundred times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.
So justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
Shyness is the prison of the heart.
The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
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.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
Society has used the juvenile courts to create a caste system where there are throw-away people.
~James Bell
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
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.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
