Quotes

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

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.

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.

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.

It is certain that the study of human psychology, if it were undertaken exclusively in prisons, would also lead to misrepresentation and absurd generalizations.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

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.

While we have prisons it matters little which of us occupy the cells.

I know not whether laws be right, or whether laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

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.

If two people fight on the street, whose fault is it? Who is the criminal? It is the government’s responsibility because the government has not educated the people to not make mistakes. The people have inadequate, incompetent education, so they make mistakes! It is such a fraud.

The punishment can be remitted; the crime is everlasting.

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

Pardon is the virtue of victory.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.

We have our own system, ... and journalists in our system are not put in prison for embarrassing the government by revealing things the government might not wish to have revealed. The important thing is that our system, under which journalists can write without fear or favor, should continue.

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.

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%.

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.

It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.