Benjamin Rush Quotes

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.

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

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

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair.

If we were really tough on crime, we'd do more to stop it from happening in the first place.

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

Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment.

Crime is not going to be stopped by police departments. You have to have police departments but alone they cannot stop crime.

Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

We spend an awful lot of money on the criminal justice system that could better be spent at the other end of the spectrum.

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

Trying to solve the crime problem by building more prison cells is like trying to solve the problem of AIDS by building more hospitals.

There's nothing we [the Congress] can do to eliminate crime.

The purpose of punishment is fulfilled, crime is repressed by penalties of just, not tormenting, severity, its repetition is prevented, and hope is given for the reformation of the criminal.

Arresting people is not going to lower the crime rate

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.

What to do about these increases in crime? Plenty of laws already exist to punish violent criminals, and research questions the level of correlation between longer sentences and lower crime rates.

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.

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.

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.

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.

America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.

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

Punishment is not for revenge, but to lessen crime and reform the criminal.