Jimmy Carter Quotes

Impunity for the great thief, and jail for the thief who steals a loaf.

In Brazil, a poor man goes to jail when he steals. When a rich man steals, he becomes a minister.

Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.

I've always been driven by the concept of equal justice under the law, but only the rich can pay great sums of money for legal assistance and that puts them at an advantage over the poor.

People who are wealthy tend to be treated much more fairly in our criminal justice system.

America should be ashamed to say they have the best justice system in the world when, every day, race plays a part in who goes to prison, who don't go to prison.

At the end of the day, we have an economy that works for the rich by cheating the poor, and unequal schools are the result of that, not the cause.

I don't know, it may be that poor people are the only ones who commit crimes, but I do know that they are the only ones who serve prison sentences.

The scales of American justice are out of balance.

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator

And Justice for Some

I don’t think the pardon power should only be available to the people who are prominent and well connected…. It should be available to people in trailer parks also.

There's lots of law these days, but not much justice.

All men are created equal. Some, it appears, are created a little more equal than others.

Justice is not available to all equally; it is something that many of us must struggle to achieve.

Safety should not be just for people who can afford it.

Liberty is impossible if 36 thousand families at the top of the economic pyramid get as much income as 12 million families at the bottom.

The other bands are just as bad, but we go to jail more.

Nearly all inmates are drawn from the ranks of the powerless and the poor. A child of privilege frequently receives the benefit of the doubt; a child of poverty seldom does.

He thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it.

Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded.

I don't think we live in a particularly equal society.

The rich don't exploit the poor. They just out-compete them.

It is wrong to use equal language for unequal actions.