Ronald Reagan Quotes

To make crime unprofitable, let the government run it.

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

Gang members aren't frightened into acceptable behavior by increased penalties, enhanced punishments, and the promise of new detention facilities.

Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little.

Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

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

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

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

Criminals are punished, that others may be deterred.

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

There is no system of regulation or law that can prevent crime, white collar or otherwise.

The real answer to the problem of crime committed by persons on bail, and indeed the solution to the general problem of crime, lies not in preventive detention of individuals presumed innocent, but in the speedy trial of the accused and the swift and sure punishment of the guilty.

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.

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

Severity of punishment is not the cure for crime. Certainty and promptness of punishment rather than severity are more effective. There was a time, as we all know, when in England considerably more than two hundred separate offenses were punishable by death. Nevertheless, that period was one of the most lawless and violent known to history. The utter failure of the drastic technique in the suppression of crime is universally acknowledged.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It doesn't help to wait until something happens and then prosecute the offenders, especially if it's the idea of the offender to extinguish himself in the commission of the crime.

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.

For the past seven years we have been cracking down on crime in Missouri, passing tougher laws for drug crimes and sex offenses and requiring prisoners to serve more time.