Have not prisons – which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe – always been universities of crime?
Meaning of the quote
Prisons can make people lose their willpower and personality. They also have more bad behavior and problems inside them than anywhere else. So, Kropotkin is asking if prisons are really just places where people learn how to commit more crimes.
About Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist and geographer who advocated for anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic family, he later served as an officer in Siberia and participated in geological expeditions. Kropotkin was imprisoned for his activism and spent many years in exile, during which he published extensively on anarchism and geography.
More quotes from Peter Kropotkin
The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror.
Russian revolutionary socialist and philosopher (1842-1921)
America is just the country that how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society.
Russian revolutionary socialist and philosopher (1842-1921)
Have not prisons – which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe – always been universities of crime?
Russian revolutionary socialist and philosopher (1842-1921)