Harsh Penalties Quotes

The severity of punishments ought to be relative to the state of the nation itself. Stronger and more easily felt impressions have to be made on a people only just out of the savage state. A lightning strike is needed to stop a fierce lion who is provoked by a gunshot.

Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.

Americans like to humiliate wrongdoers...We like, in short, to punish. It makes us feel good. By every conceivable metric - arrests, prosecutions, duration of sentences, conditions of imprisonment - the United States is by far the most punitive rich democracy.

Locking minors away for decades doesn't solve anything.

Manditory minimums were almost always excessive, and they made me feel unethical, even dirty.

No cruel and unusual punishment is to be inflicted? It is sometimes necessary to hang a man. Villains often deserve whipping and perhaps having their ears cut off. But are we in the future to be prevented from inflicting these punishments because they are cruel?

Benefit sanctions have been applied in cases where a person has failed to turn up to the jobcentre because they are in hospital following a heart attack. A woman was sanctioned for attending cancer treatment. A man was sanctioned for attending a funeral.

I see where they are going to be more strict with these robbers; when they catch 'em from now on, they're going to publish their names.

Every day, lax sentencing costs lives.

Lost in the often-vitriolic national quarrel over immigration reform is any examination of proposed measures that would result in excessive punishment, such as detention and deportation, for the most minor offenses.

I didn't understand that you could go to jail for the rest of your life for selling cocaine. I thought life sentences were for murderers. I didn't know that you could get it for supplying something to someone that they asked you for.

For states that support terror, it is not enough that the consequences be costly-they must be devastating

It is one thing to impose drastic measures and harsh economic penalties when an environmental problem is clear-cut and severe...