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.
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future lives and crimes to society.
No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
The refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack.
If you treat prisoners well, they will be less angry, less inclined to violence inside prison, less likely to provoke violent actions by guards, less likely to have reason to file brutality lawsuits that cost taxpayers a bundle and waste administrators' time. And most important, well-treated prisoners will be less likely to leave prison angrier, more vicious and more inclined to criminal behavior than when they went in.
It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.”
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
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.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.
Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.
I can work for the Lord in or out of prison.
There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
A just chastisement may benefit a man, though it seldom does; but an unjust one changes all his blood to gall.
There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison walls.
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenseless!
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.
