Susana Martinez Quotes

If we believe in our current penal process, then the penalties imposed by judges and juries should be the only sanctions for one's crime, not the invisible sanctions of the legislature.

Now, I - for several years while I was researching this book, I felt quite obsessed by thoughts about sentencing, punishment, how judges arrive at their decisions.

We cannot and should not repeal Article 17. We have to allow for the individualization of punishment and we have to take into consideration the emotional state of the perpetrator when he committed the crime. This prerogative is given to judges in the West as well.

I believe indeterminate sentencing can be extremely useful, but I also believe that any such system should always take into consideration the special knowledge as to the facts in a case which only the trial judge possesses.

Circumstances of crimes vary. So do motives. And so do prospects for rehabilitation. The number of imponderables makes it impossible to sentence by formula and still sentence justly.

Even without mandatory sentences, judges are still capable of levying tough penalties for serious offenses - and just as in states like Texas that have 'tough on crime' reputations, this can be done without jeopardizing public safety.

None of my peers avoided prison. None of 'em.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

I was never jailed. The fact is that I was arrested, but I went into a diversion programme, and by that time I'd already begun working in what was called anger management. It was a painful and awful moment.

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.

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

Generally speaking, the public appetite for criminal justice policy is just tough talk.

The people deemed too dangerous to release therefore become the very people released with no conditions and no supervision.

The newest "fad" of the penologists is "indeterminate sentences".... This plan ... will work first rate if God will agree to act as the discharging officer. It is hardly likely, though, that he would accept the position: he has long been out of politics.

The fact that the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world's population incarcerates 25% of the world's prisoners is largly due to manditory minimum sentences.

I've never been in prison. I've been in jail a lot. But I've never actually been sentenced to anything.

What has too often happened in the past is that people have threatened punishment but have failed to carry it out. It's imperative in any initiative that is undertaken that punishment be real and that there be truth in sentencing, and that the truly dangerous offenders - the recidivists and the career criminals - be put away and kept away.

Probation is a less-well-known branch of our justice system, compared with, say, police and prisons, but that doesn't make it any less important. Hundreds of thousands of offenders each year are rehabilitated back into society by probation, which is crucial for the public's safety.

In the long run, a flexible sentencing procedure which works to rehabilitate offenders offers the best hope in the majority of cases in the Federal courts.

We can agree that keeping serious criminals in prison is an effective means of preserving public safety, but we must also recognize that the axiom of 'putting people in jail and throwing away the key' does not apply to all offenders universally and can actually be counterproductive.

I am deeply impressed with the gravity and wisdom with which most federal judges approach the responsibility of sentencing. It is a difficult, soul-searching task at best.

We don't live in a world where, if you commit a crime, your life's over. We as a society believe in rehabilitation. We believe in second and third chances.

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

As a law-enforcement official, as a politician, you are always going to have in the back of your mind the fear that someone you release will end up committing another crime, potentially a serious crime, during a period when they otherwise would have been incarcerated.

We've been addicted to incarceration as a primary response for decades, whether or not it's a good use of resources, whether or not it's humane, whether or not it is effective at keeping us safe, rehabilitating or healing victims.