If life was fair … one third of the people would comprise of judges and lawyers … one third of police and prison officials … and one third of legislators … and one third more...

Being open is happiness and being closed is sadness. So free your mind from the prison of binding ideas and thoughts.

oh shit it’s shit

When you are born into bondage you can’t see the prison.

Golden bars make no less a prisonthan a coffin on a hill.And in caged reformation,one wanders aimless still.The rafters now a recollectionof sacred suppression.How the morning dawnstrikes mourning confession.Now Death yields a harvestof the living...

Like most arts, the link between the mind and the pen can chain you like an enslaved workaholic. Even on an intended vacation you suddenly have this killer urge to record whatever the vacation may...

If I spent ten years in prison, I’d probably come to value the small things in life. Things like good food, a comfy bed, and a toothbrush sharpened into a shank.

The government should either force the population to get healthy, or tax them for not complying. If the people still refuse to shape up, they should be imprisoned. Nothing is healthier for society than more...

In my view, it is an error to think about ‘alternatives to prison’ if what we mean by that is ‘electronic bracelets,’ through which people are subject to computer-monitored house arrest, or granting fuller surveillance...

The cells smell is a great feature of French prisons. Ours in No.44 was one of those fine broad-shouldered up and coming young smells, which stand on both feet and look the world in the...

The blue shirt called a guard. He was ordered to come down, but didn’t. They shot him in the leg, he fell and later in the cell, he removed a blade from a disposable razor,...

In here I’m the guy who can get things for you… outside all you need is the Yellow Pages. I don’t think I could make it.

In order for prisons to truly serve the public, the people who run them would do well to aspire to the words of Thomas Mott Osborne, the storied warden of New York’s Sing Sing Prison...

Poor boy.

But life, they said, means life. Dying inside.The Devil was evil, mad, but I was the Devil’s wifewhich made me worse. I howled in my cell.If the Devil is gone then how could this be...

The subsistence mentality of a person is a prison in which his personal joy is detained. If you want to live in joy, you don’t live for yourself alone. Live for others too!

I cannot be critical of an infant whose only possible source of nourishment can be found in the dugs of a wolf.

I was most happy when pen and paper were taken from me and I was forbidden from doing anything. I had no anxiety about doing nothing by my own fault, my conscience was clear, and...

Very few people deserted me when I went to prison. They stayed loyal.

You judge, Madsen. Not cool.

I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I’ve only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a “serious” novel.

Fuck you, angel. Fuck you and all God’s little prison bitches. He slips you some cigarettes and a con job smile and you run off to do his dirty work for him. Go and scare...

In prison, you learn to count each day and each moment. You even count the bad ‘meals’ and the unbearable ones.

We’re not broken. We’re not in the wrong bodies. We’re not inadequate. We’re not lesser. We’re not unwanted. We’re not fraudulent. We’re not undesirable. That’s all just a set of lies we tell to soothe...

is it always in the interest of the public safety to seek the prosecutor’s traditional solution – the harshest penalty possible? Or is the public best served by finding ways to change a kid’s lot...

The tears in my pus-filled eyes became a thousand little crystals of ever color. Like stained-glass windows, I thought. God is with you today, Papi! In the midst of nature’s monstrous elements, in the wind,...

It may be bad for you, but government has no role in dictating our lives. People should be free to imprison themselves.

Some prisons don’t require bars to keep people locked inside. All it takes is their perception that they belong there.

Do you know a Psychopath?You do not know me; but after reading my memoir you will know me a little better and you will have had the experience of safely getting into the mind and...

True wisdom comes in understanding that sometimes, you are both the prison and the key.

I am afraid the greatest prison that people live in is the fear what other people think… Grow up & lose the fear.

IN OUR CELLSThey keep us in our cellsFor a long time…And, if we get out,We lug them with us on our shoulders,Like a porter with a chest of goods.

[Lord Horror] was so unique and radical, I expected to go to prison for it. I always thought that if you wrote a truly dangerous book — something dangerous would happen to you. Which is...

The greater ignorance towards a country is not ignoring what its politicians have to say, it is ignoring what the inmates in its prisons have to say.

Any education that doesn’t allow you to think freely is not an education but a prison.

For the average person leading an ordinary life, fame holds an hypnotic attraction. Many would sooner perish than exist in anonymity. But for the unlucky few who’ve had notoriety forced upon them, infamy can be...

If he’s a poet, why’s he in jail?” demanded a suspicious voice. Madam Chairwoman shrugged velvet shoulders. “Perhaps he writes free verse,” she suggested cunningly. A stir of approval answered her. Mice are all for...

As I stood in the room looking at it for the last time, I felt again the cold metal of the handcuffs on my wrists and remembered the physical suffering and mental anguish I had...

No sun cream or condoms, just in case you’re looking at the lady-boys. There’s plenty of AIDS lingering about and every STD you can imagine.

Jerry-5486: “The most apparent thing that I noticed was how most of the people in this study derive their sense of identity and well-being from their immediate surroundings rather than from within themselves, and that’s...

Great institutions have leaders who are proud of what they do, and who engage with everyone who makes up those institutions, so each person understands their role. But our jailers are generally granted near-total anonymity,...

I like visiting people in prison. I can say whatever I want to them, and they can’t do anything about it.

He offered her power, money, status…a giant prison, all in exchange for only…her soul.

Who leads the world in consumption? America! Who has more lawyers per capita? America! Who has the highest incarceration rate? America! What is the greatest country on earth? America!

It’s hard to say goodbye for good at any time or any place. It’s harder still to say it through a meshed wire. It crisscrossed his face into little diagonals, gave me only little broken-up...

All others are outside myself;I lock my door and bar them outThe turmoil, tedium, gad-about.I lock my door upon myself,And bar them out; but who shall wallSelf from myself, most loathed of all?If I could...

Self-doubt imprisons those that never overcome it.

Um, h-h-hi,” Sophie stammered, closing the door behind her. Meeting her gaze were crystal eyes like blue shards of glass.

Truth shrilled in prison or cemetary.

The good doctor reassured John these were people who put their psychopathy to good use. They lived productive, well-adjusted lives as surgeons, CEOs and ambulance drivers. The light bulb went on. The CSC [Correctional Service...