Judy Sheindlin Quotes

I believe, and I may be wrong, the system sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Prison is supposed to rehabilitate, but they don't do that in a lot of cases.

All emphasis in American prisons is on punishment, retribution, and disparagement, and almost none is on rehabilitation.

Prison works.

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.

Punishment can do a lot for criminals, and send a message to the rest of society.

We make no apology for people who should be in prison being in prison.

Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.

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

Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.

We spend $94,000 per prisoner [per year]. There is a tension between punishment and making people’s lives better and I don’t actually think that we have done the second part well. We put people in prison and expect them to come out

Unfortunately, if the man who leaves the prison gates is just as likely or - as is sometimes grievously the case - more likely to offend as he was when he entered them, then we fail not only the individual but public safety as well.

I think that far too often we let those who commit crimes in our society off far too lightly.

I think we will be safer when we can concentrate law enforcement and criminal justice resources and energies on those individuals who truly need, for the safety of society... to be incarcerated.

Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they try - by punishing the troublesome - to deter others. No doubt, in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously.

We have determined as a society, as a country, as a people, that the incarceration and the supervision and the specific fines for a particular crime are that person's debt to society.

I don't believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life.

I've worked in the prison system for five years, and most of those folks in prison didn't have a direction.

If it wasn't for prison, I was in a bad way.

More prisons, more enforcement, effective death penalty.

The most malign of all these dangers today is disregard and disobedience of law. Crime is increasing. Confidence in rigid and speedy justice is decreasing.

Bad people should be incarcerated.

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

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

The notion that we should take away educational programs in prisons in order to be tough on crime makes no sense.

Prisons are universities of the opposition.