The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
You utter a vow, or forge a signature, and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman, or prison.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a God.
The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.
By noiselessly going to a prison a civil-resister ensures a calm atmosphere.
In prisons, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, Its own avenging angel--dark misgiving, An ominous sinking at the inmost heart.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking…is freedom.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
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.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Money will determine whether the accused goes to prison or walks out of the courtroom a free man.
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.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
They took away my money, my family, and my security. Why couldn't they destroy my ideas? We will question them in court tomorrow as we trigger The Revolution of all revolutions!
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.
The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
