“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

The House of the Dead (1862) as translated by Constance Garnett; as cited in The Yale Book of Quotations (2006) by Fred R. Shapiro, p. 210 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ck6bXqt5shkC&pg=PA210

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky 155
Russian author 1821–1881

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