Valerie Jarrett Quotes

More prisons, more enforcement, effective death penalty.

Obviously, people who commit crimes should be punished. Even people who steal socks and 'Snow White' videos should probably do time if they have priors, especially serious priors. But the punishment has to fit the crime, and the standard has to be the same for everyone.

Within the realm of the law, we have to be as severe as we can. We will not simply give capital punishment to all criminals, but those who deserve it will get it.

Nothing will deter crime but the certainty of punishment.

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

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.

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.

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.

If we believe in our current penal process, then the penalties imposed by judges and juries should be the only sanctions for one's crime, not the invisible sanctions of the legislature.

Smart on Crime says if you commit violent crimes, you should go to jail, and go to jail for extended periods of time. For people who are engaged in non-violent crimes - any crimes, for that matter - we are looking for sentences that are proportionate to the conduct that you engaged in.

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

Criminals are punished, that others may be deterred.

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

Any politician who wants to eliminate parole just doesn’t understand law enforcement.

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.

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

I'm very tough on crimes where there are victims who have been physically harmed. In such cases, I do not believe in leniency.

Our laws are too lax, our justice system too weak - particularly when it comes to violent, dangerous offenders.

Every day, lax sentencing costs lives.

The truth is you cannot decrease the severity and certainty of sentences without increasing crime. It's simply impossible.

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.

Judges have a hard job. It's not just putting someone in jail or slapping someone on the wrist and giving them a punishment, but it's protecting society as a whole.

No one would normally accuse me of being soft on crime.

There must be real consequences for those who commit crimes in our neighborhoods.