W. H. Auden Quotes

A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal.

He’s bound to have done something,” Nobby repeated. In this he was echoing the Patrician’s view of crime and punishment. If there was a crime, there should be punishment. If the specific criminal should be involved in the punishment process then this was a happy accident, but if not then any criminal would do, and since everyone was undoubtedly guilty of something, the net result was that, in general terms, justice was done.

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it.

The crime should be punished no matter whether poverty or wealth caused it to occur, because the crime is wrong.

Our justice system is a punitive one that's there to sort of deal with what happens after someone's already offended.

Capital punishment is neither cruel nor unusual.

A lot can be debated about criminal justice and its delivery system.

It is obviously sensible the crossing of a border ought not to protect a criminal from the consequences of his crime.

I didn't feel at all guilty about what I did, so I couldn't plead guilty, even though I would get a more lenient sentence.

As people, we have to take the law's side. We have to stand behind the police, not behind the criminal.

I think we need to update the existing laws to create uniformity across the states so that all people with mental illness who find themselves in the criminal justice system for committing horrific crimes will be treated exactly the same.

Criminal justice reformers prattle on about 'over-incarceration' in America when in fact our nation suffers from an under-incarceration problem.

Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled; man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent.

Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.

There are no explanations for human evil. Only excuses.

Crime is only the retail department of what, in wholesale, we call penal law.

If you're stealing a television, that should not be the death penalty.

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

The nature of the criminal justice system has changed. It is no longer primarily concerned with the prevention and punishment of crime, but rather with the management and control of the dispossessed.

The death penalty makes us all murderers.

No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong -- only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.

A large portion of American citizens, especially people of color, have lost confidence in our criminal justice system. Many have called for appointing special prosecutors when a police officer kills or injures a civilian. If you were elected president, would you publicly support special prosecutors in these cases and what is one other thing you would do to fix our broken justice system?

No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated.

Why should we tell kidnappers, murderers, and embezzlers their rights? If they don't know their rights, they shouldn't be in the business.

The courts used to be, fair and square, the avengers of secular crimes; but nowadays they demand respect even for the criminal.