C. S. Lewis Quotes

Punishment should have a redemptive quality to it.

The abolition of death penalty would give more opportunities for pastoral work with those who have stumbled and for the latter to repent. It is also evident that punishment by death cannot be reformatory; it also makes misjudgement irreparable

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

I am grateful that I live in a nation where most believe that one's punishment should fit their wrongdoing and that ours is a nation that judges an individual by both what he has done and how he has changed.

In Scotland over many years we have cultivated through our justice system what I hope can be described as a 'culture of compassion.' On the other hand, there still exists in many parts of the U.S., if not nationally, an attitude towards the concept of justice which can only be described as a 'culture of vengeance.'

Let the Lord judge the criminals.

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.

To show men that crimes can be pardoned, and that punishment is not their inevitable consequence, encourages the illusion of impunity and induces the belief that, since there are pardons, those sentences which are not pardoned are violent acts of force rather than the products of justice.

I don't think that anybody should be suspended for life for anything, other than murder. How is it helping someone to say, 'You're done forever, your life's over'?

I do not think that condemning people who murder and killing them necessarily sends out the right message.

We need to incorporate that age-old concept of redemption into the work that we do in the criminal justice system in California.

But this will not do, God will certainly punish you for stealing and for being unfaithful.

Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned to die.

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

There are deeds, crimes that may be forgiven. But this is not one of them.

Even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.

From this window we see the palace where the King is misled by perfidious counsels. Terror and fear have often issued from yon palace: let them return to-day in the name of the law, and let all those who inhabit that palace know that the King is alone inviolable, that the law will strike down the guilty without respect of persons, and that there is not a guilty head which can escape its sword.

It is wonderful to hear what account we at present give ourselves of the punishment of criminals. No "revenge"--O Heavens, no; all preachers on Sunday strictly forbid that; and even (at least on Sundays) prescribe the contrary of that. It is for the sake of "example," that you punish; to "protect society" and its purse and skin; to deter the innocent from falling into crime; and especially withal, for the purpose of improving the poor criminal himself,--or at lowest, of hanging and ending him, that he may not grow worse. For the poor criminal is, to be "improved" if possible:

To those who submit to rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance; but to the petulant secessionist … death is a mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better.

The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.

Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate.

We think of our prison inmates as the dregs of society, and we scorn them and push them off to the side and forget about them. We have to remember that they are humans, and they have rights, and yes, they did wrong, but we all have one shot at doing wrong, you know?

A man who dies, no matter how terrible his crime was, must be brought to burial.

there is no glory in punishing

Sins may be forgiven. Crimes require punishment.