Mark Twain Quotes

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

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

It is better to support schools than jails.

I don't want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.

He who opens a school door, closes a 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.

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

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.

There is one stark fact facing us: three quarters of all crime that results in a caution or sentence happens because of reoffending. We must be fearless in dealing with this.

For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.

When you have kids that have no jobs and are not in school, too often they get themselves into trouble. So what we have got to do is invest in education and in jobs, something which I have fought for, rather than more jails and incarceration.

There is a direct correlation between education, stable families and incarceration and crime.

I don't want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.

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

How come life in prison doesn't mean life? Until it does, we're not ready to do away with the death penalty. Stop thinking in terms of "punishment" for a minute and think in terms of safeguarding innocent people from incorrigible murderers. Americans have a right to go about their lives without worrying about these people being back out on the street. So until we can make sure they're off the street permanently, we have to grit our teeth and put up with the death penalty

Arresting people is not going to lower the crime rate

There is little evidence that the length of a sentence, as opposed to its certainty, has significant deterrent effects. If we cut sentences in half across the board, there is no reason to believe we’d see an appreciable rise in crime, and over time we would most likely see a large drop in the prison population.

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.

Most go to prison not on account of their irreducible uniqueness as people but because they are part of a marginalized sector of the population who never had a chance, who were slated for it early on.

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.

If you want to deal with an epidemic - crime or health - the smartest and most effective and cheapest way to deal with it is prevention first.

We'll get way further if we educate people and not lock them up.

Boys need fathers, and you can't do that in jail.

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

If I was a bad guy, I probably would be incarcerated.