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.
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.
Vices are not crimes.
Pardon is the virtue of victory.
While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
Justice renders to every one his due.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that often [is] considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.
The best situation of all, and one frequently utilized, is for jails and prisons to allow volunteer ministers of all faiths to enter prisons and offer their services to the inmates who want them. That way, the religious needs of inmates are met but without government funds being spent.
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.
The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.
The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Steal goods and you’ll go to prison, steal lands and you are a king.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.
