Every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.
Donald Beardslee is set for execution this week in California. His crimes were about twenty years ago, but it will be the first execution in California in quite some time.
When you're in prison, you can't do anything about what's happening outside.
You know, my daughters have been through their entire lives and knowing about my case.
Prison opened my eyes to so many things. It was a great time. I met interesting people. I got to understand the behaviour of the police and the media. I am an observer of the human race.
Only to those who have been in prison does freedom have such great meaning.
Attica. The name itself has long signified resistance to prison abuse and state violence.
Then once you get people locked up, it's an incredibly inhuman system.
It would probably surprise people how prevalent reading is in institutions - and the degree to which some states discourage reading by instituting draconian rules and laws that try to limit and outright roadblock books in prisons.
No one can say, 'I have dropped out - I am no longer in the system.' When you're in prison, you're even closer to the system: you feel it more, and you might be in there for whatever reason. You don't transform the system as an absolute thing.
The First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the general public, nor does it cloak the inmate with special rights of freedom of speech.
To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.
It is in prison ... that one becomes a real revolutionary.
The spirit of Burzum never changed, but my ability to make music changed dramatically when I was imprisoned. It is more or less impossible to record music in prison, and the only music I could record was electronic music, when I was allowed to have a synthesizer for a few months in 1994 or 1995 and in 1998.
Behind every great man in prison is another great man in prison.
Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live.
It is tragic that people who are incarcerated are unable to vote. They are probably the most important voices to listen to because they can tell us what we need to change.
As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it's only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.
Oh, the inmates and the prisoners I found they were my kind And it was there inside the bars I found my peace of mind But the jails they were too crowded Institutions overflowed So they turned me loose to walk upon Life's hurried tangled road
Unfortunately, the elimination of incentives such as parole, good time credits and funding for college courses, means that fewer inmates participate in and excel in literacy, education, treatment and other development programs.
The prison system in Norway is fairly civilized, by world standards, and so are the prisoners and the guards.
There were no artists in Ossining, which was the home of Sing Sing prison. Most of the parents of the guys I knew were guards there.
While I was in prison, I was indulging in all types of vice, right within the prison. And I never was ostracized as much by the penal authorities while I was participating in all of the evils of the prison, as they tried to ostracize me after I became a Muslim.
Today the United States has the highest prison population in the world, over 2.1 million people. ... We lock people up at a rate that is seven to ten times that of any other democracy.
I had one warden tell me since I've been out, and I visited an inmate in prison right here in New York, Warden Fay up at Green Haven. I visited an inmate in prison and he told me that he didn't want anybody in there trying to spread this religion.
