Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so greatly humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to Providence, nor any advice to give to society; but, you see, the infamy from which I have tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys make the convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand.
—Jean Valjean, Les Misérables
This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to jail now, and you make him a jail-bird for life.
—Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
For every wall you build around your fear
A thousand darker things are born in here
And they're fed on contempt for all that you hold dear
A thousand darker things are born in here
And they're fed on contempt for all that you hold dear
Steve Earle, "The Truth"
How many have come to Abbott without guilt? Too many. But I don't worry about the innocent, because on Carnate, none of us is without sin for long...
—Ranse Truman, The Suffering
Over the years I tried to join my father in his business pursuits. I wanted to gain his acceptance. I failed. [the young Kingpin ends up in prison after he's caught helping his father in a botched robbery] Now I was all alone. I realized I was going to have to learn to survive or be destroyed. And I did learn. By the time I got out, I had acquired all the skills needed to begin building my criminal empire. I even took a new name: Fisk, but I quickly became known as the Kingpin.
—The Kingpin, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, "The Man Without Fear"
Don't you see? That's what the penal system does in this country. It turns small-time offenders into hardened criminals. Look at Meg. They took an innocent little girl and turned her into a psychotic, sociopathic freak.
—Brian Griffin, Family Guy S8 E11 "Dial Meg for Murder"
