Criminal Deterrence Quotes

The proliferation of state concealed carry laws has evidently reduced the rate of violent street crime to a considerable extent. When the goblins do not know who is armed and who is not, their professional enthusiasm declines. Now that Britain has made sure (insofar as any law can so insure) that everybody is disarmed, the streets arem given back to the bad kid with the baseball bat. We hope they are satisfied.

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms... serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

As sensors and networks continue to expand around the world, we'll see violence drop even further. After all, when there's a danger that your actions can be caught on tape and shown around the world, you're more responsible for your behavior.

No severity of punishment deters when detection is uncertain, as it always must be.

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion that poverty can be prevented.

The police can't stop an intruder, mugger, or stalker from hurting you. They can pursue him only after he has hurt or killed you. Protecting yourself from harm is your responsibility, and you are far less likely to be hurt in a neighborhood of gun-owners than in one of disarmed citizens - even if you don't own a gun yourself.

Not everybody is strong enough to endure life without an anesthetic. Drink probably averts more gross crime than it causes.

The only thing that gets reported are the tragedies. But it rarely gets reported when somebody actually uses their Second Amendment right with a gun to protect themselves against a criminal.

Changes in court decisions [on defendants' rights] ... have about the same effect on the crime rate as an aspirin would have on a tumor of the brain.

Until we in the community have made up our minds that what we really want is expiation, or removal, or reform, or or the discouragement of potential criminals, we shall get none of these, but only a confusion in which crime breeds more crime.

The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.

The claim that too many criminals are being jailed, that there is over-incarceration, ignores an unfortunate fact: For the vast majority of crimes, a perpetrator is never identified or arrested, let alone prosecuted, convicted and jailed.

… government policy should favor married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators, Working women … are detrimental to the family man's basic nature is inclined towards evil, and when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter

The great principle of Justice: prevent crime rather than punish it. All that is needed to execute a guilty man is a firing squad or a hangman. To prevent there being guilty men requires great astuteness.

The first lines of defence against criminals are the victims themselves.

Disarmed citizens encourage crime and violence. Armed citizens encourage criminals to find a safer line of work.

The broad consensus is that our system should be better structured to deter crimes without giving up on everyone who commits them, and should better balance resources to hold violent criminals fully accountable without imposing unnecessarily harsh sentences on nonviolent offenders.

If harsher laws are put in place, less will dare to break them.

Gun-free zones don't deter criminals-they help them by providing a guarantee that they will not face any armed resistance. But they do deter the law-abiding. A faculty member with a concealed-handgun permit who breaks the campus gun ban would be fired and likely find it impossible to get admitted to another school. Bringing a firearm into a gun-free zone can have serious adverse consequences for law-abiding people. But for someone like the Virginia Tech killer, the threat of expulsion is no deterrent at all.