Vanna Bonta Quotes

The punishment of the wrongdoer is not designed as atonement for a crime; it is a solace to the individual who has suffered a private wrong.

One thing, however, is sure, - that in all cases the effort should be to impose all the cost of repairing the wrong upon the doer of the wrong. This alone is real justice, and of course such justice is necessarily free.

I went to prison, I paid my bill.

You can forgive somebody and still believe they need a consequence.

Punishment should have a redemptive quality to it.

Restorative justice is not a replacement of retributive justice, but a complement. It seeks the rehabilitation of the wrongdoer and the repair of the victim's injury.

I did my time for the rape. I paid my money to Las Vegas. I paid my dues.

I don't believe in vengeance. Really, when all is said and done, I probably don't believe in punishment.

The state is not the agent of mercy or charity, but is the instrument of God's vengeance against those who disturb the public peace through theft, violence, or negligence. To the state belongs the power of the sword, which consists of the right to execute those who are worthy of death, to inflict corporal punishment, and to require restitution to the victims of theft and bodily injury.

The United States imprisons many non-violent offenders who could instead be required to pay fines, perform community service, and make restitution to their victims… Maintaining our vast network of prisons consumes resources that could be better spent on education and other crime prevention efforts... Rather than reforming offenders, prison too often degrades and dehumanizes prisoners, making the task of rehabilitation and reentry into society even more difficult.

The object of punishment is to... lift the man up; to stamp out his bad nature and wicked disposition.

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

I've done my time. I've done it as well and as respectfully as I think anyone can.

If you do a mistake, I think you should get punished.

If I do something wrong, make me pay for it.

To the criminals and all their accomplices, I, today, humbly and as a brother, repeat: convert yourselves to love and justice. It is possible to return to honesty. The tears of the mothers of Naples are asking this of you.

I truly believe that we cannot come to a place of reconciliation until there is individual repentance and corporate repentance.

Is it to be thought unreasonable that the people, in atonement for wrongs of a century, demand the vengeance of a single day?

First, therefore, [the Jew] goes about making up to the people for his previous sins against them. He begins his career as the 'benefactor' of mankind. Since his new benevolence has a practical foundation, he cannot very well adhere to the old Biblical recommendation, that the left hand should not know what the right hand giveth.

Surely until all of us own and honor one another's dead, until we have admitted to our murders and forgiven one another and ourselves for what we have done, there can be no truce, no dignity and no peace.

You can't demand truth and reconciliation. You have to demand truth - people have to hear it, and then they have to want to reconcile themselves to that truth.

Remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance, its expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter to a soul changed for the better.

You cannot compensate by sacrifice what you lose through disobedience

I shall never rest until I have undone the harm I did to so many well-meaning, innocent Negroes who through my own evangelistic zeal now believe in him even more fanatically and more blindly than I did.

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?