Chris Grayling Quotes

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.

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

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

Prison … for the detention of persons and not for flagellating them or undermining their health.

Every first year law student learns that sentencing has four goals: retribution, incapicitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation.

Have not prisons - which kill all will and force of character in man, which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any other spot of the globe - always been universities of crime?

One of the things about jail that's weird is that you're sent to a place where you're supposed to sit there and think about your actions and their consequences and why you're there. And I think now, it turns more into - the minute you go there, it's just survival.

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

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.

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

It may seem a hard task to condemn fellow creatures to long years of confinement in prison, but it is not so hard if they clearly deserve it.

Now, I - for several years while I was researching this book, I felt quite obsessed by thoughts about sentencing, punishment, how judges arrive at their decisions.

Criminals are punished, that others may be deterred.

Place all prisons near a high-road, where the suffering and disfigured offenders can be seen

Retribution is no longer the dominant objective of the criminal law. Reformation and rehabilitation of offenders have become important goals of criminal jurisprudence.

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.

Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to be to restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.

The end of punishment, therefore, is no other than to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will make the strongest and most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal

I'd rather lock somebody up and throw away the key and put them in hard labor, the ultimate penalty that the law will allow, but I'm opposed to the death penalty

I want prisons to be spartan, but humane, a place people don't have a particular desire to come back to.

It is shocking how much a day-care center is like a prison. They both have security cameras with walled exercise yards. Prisons are permanent day cares for people permanently in time-out - convicts.

A proper criminal justice system exacts justice - that is, punishes criminals for their crimes. Rehabilitation and deterrence are worthy goals, but they are secondary to retribution.

I would like to say prison life at its very best and worst infinitely sucks.

The object of punishment is, prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.

Prison has a universal fascination. It's a real-life horror story because, given the right set of circumstances, anyone could find themselves behind bars.