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41 " He had murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy, and immediately given himself up to the police. (This had considerably mitigated his sentence). Such crimes are never judged harshly in Siberia, but rather looked upon as an unfortunate accident which ought to be pitied and regretted rather than punished. "
― Fyodor Dostoevsky , The House of the Dead
42 " One cannot judge of crime with ready-made opinions: its philosophy is a little more complicated than people think. It is acknowledged that neither convict prisons, nor the hulks, nor any system of hard labour ever reformed a criminal. These forms of chastisement only punish him and reassure society against the offences he might commit. "
43 " In a word, the right granted to a man to inflict corporal punishment on his fellow-men, is one of the plague-spots of our society. "