Imprisonment

I lost all feeling of my own identity.  I reflected on the desolation of poverty, of destitution, of sickness and sin.  That I would be free after thirty days meant nothing to me.  I would never be free again, never free when I knew that behind bars all over the world there were women and men, young girls and boys, suffering constraint, punishment, isolation and hardship for crimes of which all of us were guilty.  The mother who had murdered her child, the drug addict--who were the mad and who the sane?  Why were prostitutes prosecuted in some cases and in others respected and fawned on?  People sold themselves for jobs, for the pay check, and if they only received a high enough price, they were honored.  If their cheating, their theft, their lie, were of colossal proportions, if it were successful, they met with praise, not blame.  Why were some caught, not others?  Why were some termed criminals and others good businessmen?

Dorothy DayThe Long Loneliness