Ramsey Clark Quotes

Laws ... proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine.

A far greater factor than abolishing poverty is the deterrent effect of swift and certain consequences: swift arrest, prompt trial, certain penalty and - at some point - finality of judgment.

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.

The experience of being a prosecutor gives us a sort of proctologists view of our society.

I'd rather lock somebody up and throw away the key and put them in hard labor, the ultimate penalty that the law will allow, but I'm opposed to the death penalty

Given the devastation that crime can visit on families and communities, I will err on being a little too tough on crime than being too soft on crime.

No one would normally accuse me of being soft on crime.

I have prosecuted very serious criminals who are now serving very long jail sentences.

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem.

But if you go over the line, you don't want to get stuck in a Nevada State court room. Honestly, because Nevada has been doing a good job of putting California criminals in jail. I mean, we couldn't put OJ in jail, but they did. We couldn't put Paris Hilton in jail, but they did.

The laws only can determine the punishment of crimes, and the authority of making penal laws can only reside with the legislator, who represents the whole society united by the social compact.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Punishment can do a lot for criminals, and send a message to the rest of society.

There's a simple way to solve the crime problem: obey the law; punish those who do not.

We have determined as a society, as a country, as a people, that the incarceration and the supervision and the specific fines for a particular crime are that person's debt to society.

Successful crimes alone are justified.

We make no apology for people who should be in prison being in prison.

I've always been tremendously interested in criminal law. It goes to a deep interest I have in prisons and the criminal element, and what we do as a society with it. I've always been touched by the idea of criminality.

I'm a prosecutor first and foremost, and as a judge, I put people in jail for extended periods of time when that was appropriate.

If you seek violence, we will seek to put you in jail.

The judge said I was a menace to society because I had put crime on a scientific basis.

How accurately can the law fix the crime? There has to be a mechanism for very fast action. The law is like this: catch them and punish them.

I strongly believe that for serious and violent criminals, we must absolutely hold them accountable for their crimes and send them to prison.

We want a state of things in which crime will not pay.