Michel Foucault Quotes

We have crime without punishment.

Capt. Gordon is as responsible for the death of those on the Erie. As if he had taken the life of each by his own hand. For once, when no doubt exists as to guilt, a terrible example should be made.

He who leaves a fault unpunished invites crime.

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course.

Nothing of course was ever done to Bill for the killing of Tutt.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

I think if we wish to live in any kind of a moral universe, we must hold the perpetrators of violence responsible for the violence they perpetrate. It's very simple. The criminal is responsible for the crime.

Good laws are the offspring of bad actions.

The message has to be sent that if you commit a crime there has to be punishment.

Shall any man be above Justice. Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice. When great crimes were committed I am for punishing the principal as well as the Coadjutors

Shall any man be above justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?

if you do countenance those that are transgressors of the law you are in the same fact.

All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape

In all governments fear is recognized as one of the grounds for the enforcement of law. In even the freest nations and under the highest form of civilization the public opinion that administers law makes its demand partly in the interest of essential right, partly with the instinct of self-preservation against the forces of evil, and partly for the punishment of wrong. Punishment in itself is not reformatory; it is retributive; it is deterrent; it plays upon fear.

The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite.

At the risk of sounding really corny now, I'm a career prosecutor. I've been doing this for a very long time. And I believe in holding people responsible when they violate the law. But our sole responsibility is to seek justice. And sometimes that means a very lengthy sentence for people who are dangerous and from which society must be protected.

In 'Maatr,' we do not justify taking the law into our hands. That's not the right thing to do. We are not promoting that.

It is easy not to support the death penalty when there is doubt about the culpability of the person sitting in the chair; it is harder to sustain such principles when the crime of the accused is morally indefensible.

Crimes generally punish themselves.

Punishment closely follows guilt as its companion.

The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one actually committed.

No love or pity, pardon or excuse should soften the sharp pang of reparation for the guilty man.

I rank myself no higher in the scheme of things than a policeman - whose utility would disappear if there were no criminals.

My father was against the death penalty, and that was hard in the Son of Sam summer when fear was driving the desire for the death penalty.

Murder will out, this my conclusion.