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.
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
I never told a victim story about my imprisonment. Instead, I told a transformation story - about how prison changed my outlook, about how I saw that communication, truth, and trust are at the heart of power.
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.
Most people fancy themselves innocent of those crimes of which they cannot be convicted.
It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.
The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
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.
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
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.
Hard cases, it is said, make bad 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.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
I just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
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.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books. That Tolstoy crap - people shouldn't read that stuff.
Self is the only prison that can bind the soul.
Show me the prison, Show me the jail, Show me the prisoner whose life has gone stale. And I'll show you a young man with so many reasons why And there, but for fortune, go you or I.
I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up...I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was.
