The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne; and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
Every instance of a man's suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which is to deter.
We're in a war. People who blast some pot on a casual basis are guilty of treason.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their own kind.
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
It is not at the table, but in prison, that you learn who your true friends are.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
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.
No man should be judge in his own case.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Fear can be like a prison. It is, however, a self made prison. Many are imprisoned by fear. No one else can liberate them from this prison. Others may inspire them but they must liberate themselves.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
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.
Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.
