Elizabeth Fry Quotes
Does capital punishment tend to the security of the people? By no means. It hardens the hearts of men, and makes the loss of life appear light to them.
Elizabeth Fry, 1780-1845, English Prison Reformer, Journal
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Most people reading this think at first that if comes out of the Middle Ages, but it is quite contemporary expressing a point of view that holds that the state is but the instrument of and subservient to God as defined by Protestant Fundamentalism.
He was one of the longest serving District Attorneys in America, He also served the largest jurisdiction of a District Attorney. When he first was elected DA of Manhattan there were over 600 murders a year. When he retired, there were only about 60, a 90% reduction. Yet, his experience was that capital punishment was useless in deterring murder. He had many other techniques far more effective.
The most common example that capital punishment does not work as a deterrent is that while thieves were being hung for their crime, other thieves would circulate among the watching crowd at the scaffold and pickpocket the observers.
Elizabeth Fry, sometimes referred to as Betsy Fry, was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist. She has been called the "angel of prisons".
