Criminal Justice Quotes

• The criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws.

  Ben Whishaw

  Justice, Criminals, Flaws

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

  Francis Bacon

  Justice, Fairness, Ifs

  Francis Bacon, Basil Montagu (1844). “The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England: With a Life of the Author”, p.311

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Justice, Judging, Criminals

  15 Copy quote

• Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.

  Eliot Spitzer

  Winning, Best Effort, Justice

  "All Police Interrogations Should Be Tape-Recorded" by Eliot Spitzer, www.slate.com. October 08, 2012.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Justice is the great interest of man on earth.

  Daniel Webster

  Men, Justice, Civilized Nations

  Oration on day of Justice Story's funeral, Boston, Mass., 12 Sept. 1845

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.

  Blaise Pascal

  Strength, Umpires, Justice

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Blaise Pascal Thoughts: Selected and Translated”, p.56, Cambridge University Press

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• The criminal justice system should have the authority to determine the immigration status of all criminals, regardless of race or ethnicity, and report illegal immigrants who commit crimes to federal authorities.

  Susana Martinez

  Race, Ethnicity, Should Have

  "Susana Martínez Tells Police to Check Immigration Status in New Mexico". The Associated Press, www.foxnews.com. February 01, 2011.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Dealing with a simple burglary can require 1000 process steps and 70 forms to be completed as a case goes through the Criminal Justice System. That can't be right.

  Theresa May

  Simple, Justice, Criminals

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Steve Earle

  America, Justice, Criminals

  "Death in Texas" by Steve Earle, www.theguardian.com. January 21, 2001.

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Peace, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

  119 Copy quote

  Show source

• These are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made, we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted or think it's normal that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system. It's not normal. ... What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things.

  Barack Obama

  Mistake, Teenager, Stupid

  Barack Obama's remarks after visit at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. July 16, 2015.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, Justice, Criminals

  17 Copy quote

• We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice. Now we must add a new fight - the fight for electoral justice.

  Barbara Boxer

  Fighting, Justice, Environmental

  "Contesting Ohio electoral votes". Press conference with senator Barbara Boxer (d-ca) and representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones (d-oh), www.globalresearch.ca. January 9, 2005.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Johnny Cash was a rebel, not only just in the musical sense, but he was somebody who was for the people, and an advocate for labor, for workers, for prisoners, people who have been trapped by the criminal justice system.

  Michael Franti

  People, Justice, Musical

  15 Copy quote

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

  Kamala Harris

  California, Justice, Age

  16 Copy quote

• Specifically, the growing threat that sexual predators pose to our Nation's children and their families represents an area where our criminal justice system has failed the American people.

  Paul Gillmor

  Children, People, Justice

  15 Copy quote

• I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Abraham Lincoln, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (1950). “The Lincoln treasury”

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.

  Michael Connelly

  Writing, Justice, Police

  15 Copy quote

• Everywhere among the English-speaking race criminal justice was rude, and punishments were barbarous; but the tendency was to do away with special privileges and legal exemptions.

  Albert Bushnell Hart

  Race, Punishment, Justice

  Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D. (1909). “Epochs of American History”

  83 Copy quote

  Show source

• We'll be launching the new public prosecution service in Northern Ireland tomorrow. I'll be doing it in Belfast tomorrow. This is an entirely new era, in which criminal justice now exercised on an equal basis, not the old basis in which community division was a feature.

  Peter Hain

  Justice, Community, Criminals

  15 Copy quote

• Justice is always Violence to the Party offending, for every Man is Innocent in his own Eyes.

  Daniel Defoe

  Party, Eye, Men

  "Selected Writings of Daniel Defoe".

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.

  Karl Kraus

  Justice, Criminals, Human Nature

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a former attorney general. I have the greatest respect for the criminal justice system. But it is not good at intelligence gathering.

  Kelly Ayotte

  Intelligence Gathering, Justice, Criminals

  51 Copy quote

• Once brave politicians and others explain the war on drugs' true cost, the American people will scream for a cease-fire. Bring the troops home, people will urge. Treat drugs as a health problem, not as a matter for the criminal justice system.

  Larry Elder

  War, Home, Fire

  59 Copy quote

• I represented many of these kids as they become young adults in the criminal justice system when I was a public defender. One way of reaching out is by the mind of experimentation.

  Matt Gonzalez

  Kids, Justice, Mind

  51 Copy quote