Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent more time in jail.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
To be at peace in crime! Ah, who can thus flatter himself.
There's no greater threat to our independence, to our cherished freedoms and personal liberties than the continual, relentless injection of these insidious poisons into our system. We must decide whether we cherish independence from drugs, without which there is no freedom.
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.
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.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
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.
