Augustus Hare Quotes

Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

Gang members aren't frightened into acceptable behavior by increased penalties, enhanced punishments, and the promise of new detention facilities.

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

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

Criminals are punished, that others may be deterred.

The state is not the agent of mercy or charity, but is the instrument of God's vengeance against those who disturb the public peace through theft, violence, or negligence. To the state belongs the power of the sword, which consists of the right to execute those who are worthy of death, to inflict corporal punishment, and to require restitution to the victims of theft and bodily injury.

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

Society, by setting forth clear penalties for certain kinds of conduct sets its public ratification on moral judgments that this is wrong behavior and that it is deserving of punishment irrespective of whether the punishment will deter, rehabilitate or anything else. It is a way of society of defining what is wrong and what is seriously wrong.

The real answer to the problem of crime committed by persons on bail, and indeed the solution to the general problem of crime, lies not in preventive detention of individuals presumed innocent, but in the speedy trial of the accused and the swift and sure punishment of the guilty.

Severity of punishment is not the cure for crime. Certainty and promptness of punishment rather than severity are more effective. There was a time, as we all know, when in England considerably more than two hundred separate offenses were punishable by death. Nevertheless, that period was one of the most lawless and violent known to history. The utter failure of the drastic technique in the suppression of crime is universally acknowledged.

But passing by all other considerations, and contemplating merely the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them.

The key for members of the public is that they want criminals to be punished. They want them taken off the streets. They also want criminals who come out of prison to go straight.

I'm very tough on crimes where there are victims who have been physically harmed. In such cases, I do not believe in leniency.

Simply put, violent criminals break the law - any law - every day with impunity.

Locking people up without reducing the risk of them committing new crimes against new victims the minute they get out does not make for intelligent sentencing.

I think one of the keys to any crime-prevention program that's got to be developed is to focus on punishment - to let people know that there is a sanction and a punishment for hurting others.

You will feel the full force of the law and if you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishments. And to these people I would say this: you are not only wrecking the lives of others, you are potentially wrecking your own life too.

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

To make crime unprofitable, let the government run it.

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

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.

We must be vigilant in our actions towards criminals, and innovative in our approach towards solving crime.

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

I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…

The essence to reducing violent crime in our society is to take these people [criminals] off the street.