“I was given a cell occupied by five other men. It was infested with vermin, and sewer rates scurried back and further over the floors of that human cesspool in such numbers that it was almost impossible for me to place my feet on the stone floor. Those rats were nearly as big as cats, and vicious.”— Eugene V. Debs, books.google.com
“There is a close relationship between flowers and convicts. The fragility and delicacy of the former are of the same nature as the brutal insensitivity of the latter.”— Jean Genet, books.google.com
“During the entire incarceration process, from arrest to detainment to prosecution to conviction to prison to parole, you realize that the ONLY people who are nice to you are other inmates. You’ll meet a lot of cold-blooded prosecutors and sadistic guards, a lot of do-gooders on the 'right' side of t…”— Jim Goad, jimgoad.net
“I know not whether Laws be right or whether Laws be wrong; all that we know who live in gaol is that the wall is strong; and that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.”— Oscar Wilde, books.google.com
“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 classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart,…”— Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, books.google.com
“I turn and turn in my cell like a fly that doesn't know where to die.”— Antonio Gramsci, books.google.com
“Welcome to hell. A hell erected and maintained by human-governments, and blessed by black robed judges. A hell that allows you to see your loved ones, but not to touch them. A hell situated in America's boondocks, hundreds of miles away from most families. A white, rural hell, where most of the capt…”— Mumia Abu-Jamal, books.google.com
“Prison is a process, a succession of imprisonments. At first it operates only on a physical level, restricting your movement. Later, it extends to the psychological plane, encompassing your very perception. You come to exclude all thoughts, all visions of the free world.”— Norman Parker, goodreads.com
“It takes between one and two years for prison’s newness to wear off so its awful reality can creep in. Men who commit suicide either do it in the first geyser of shame, within days or weeks, or else after a couple of years, when all has been discovered hopeless. During the interim, no matter how muc…”— Edward Bunker, books.google.com
“Prison is designed to separate, isolate, and alienate you from everyone and everything. You're not allowed to do so much as touch your spouse, your parents, your children. The system does everything within its power to sever any physical or emotional links you have to anyone in the outside world. Th…”— Damien Echols, books.google.com
“I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I…”— Viktor E. Frankl, books.google.com
“During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide.”— Tahir Shah, books.google.com
“Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruelest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.”— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, books.google.com
“One does not expect to be comfortable in prison. As a matter of fact, one's mental suffering is so much greater than any common physical distress that the latter is almost forgotten.”— Emmeline Pankhurst, books.google.com
“I want to say at the outset that I have become ill, insane as an inmate of a torture chamber behind America's fake facade of justice and democracy. But I am not as ill as I was, and I am getting better all the time.”— Iceberg Slim, books.google.com