Estelle Parsons Quotes

Crime is a job and it's boring. It's also unpleasant.

Before science all things must fall, including the ramparts of criminality.

My approach to the story... is if you can get into a criminal's mind and understand how it works and understand how crime is committed, you can help prevent it from happening to someone else.

For 30 years I have tried to make it understood that there are no criminals.

One of my younger homies, he went to jail, and some people came to me and were like, "Bail him out," and I said no. Why would I bail him out? He's going to prison. Let him sit and get some time served. You want to be crazy, but you don't want to go to jail. You want to shoot people, but you don't want to kill people. That's such a misleading thing.

Criminals know that if they stay under certain thresholds, nobody is going to come after them.

Incarcerating non-violent offenders in the same population as more dangerous criminals has the effect of inculcating the former into a culture of criminality common among the latter, making them more of a risk to public safety upon release than when they originally went in.

We think criminality is something that exists in somehow another world to us. But actually, there is an invisible criminal web in which we are all enveloped.

As a lawyer, I've dealt with really serious offences, and the public rarely hear what the true impact is on the victims' families. When you hear it from the mouths of victims, your entire approach changes, because it could happen to anybody, and they articulate that in such a powerful way.

Going to jail is beyond what anyone thinks it is.

I'm always accused of being a crime novelist, but I'm not really.

Mass incarceration and its never-ending human toll will be with us until we come to see that no crime justifies permanent civic death.

I made my third parole and I believe if I had made it the first time, I wouldn't be here today. I still would've been out there doing stupid stuff.

As a former federal prosecutor with experience prosecuting both violent and white-collar criminals, I've seen what it looks like when the powerful prey on the vulnerable.

My perception has changed from thinking if someone's in jail they're supposed to be, to there's a lot of factors that's not that simple.

I saw worse stuff inside prison than I ever saw in the streets.

During the 10 years I worked as a prosecutor, I always struggled with what to do with someone who was clearly mentally ill and committed a horrific crime.

The streets will get you in jail.

If somebody is here illegally, and they commit a crime, chances are they're going to commit another one. So let's get rid of them.

People who end up in our prisons tend to come from the most difficult backgrounds. They did not have the parental support as they grew up, as many of us enjoyed, and they struggle when they leave prison.

Ah! How I hate the crimes of the new generation: they are dry and sterile as darnel.

Crime has always been a regrettably consistent element of the human experience.

I think that's why we're always so fascinated with criminal stories because there but for the grace of God it could be us.

For most of the guys, killings got to be accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got whacked. Everybody knew the rules.

I was in handcuffs. I was under arrest. I remember there was this old lady looking at me, and I could tell she felt real sorry for me, and she did'nt know but all I wanted to do was take her purse.