Overcriminalization Quotes

Too many Americans are going to too many prisons for far too long.

The law does not content itself with classifying and punishing crime. It invents crime.

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

The State may, indeed, make the drinking of one drop of liquor an offense to be punished by imprisonment, but it would be an unheard-of cruelty if it should count the drops in a single glass and make thereby a thousand offenses, and thus extend the punishment for drinking the single glass of liquor to any imprisonment of almost indefinite duration.

When we look at our justice system, we have this image of a balancing scale: truth and justice, right and wrong. But for years, our system has been lopsided, where it's not about truth and justice or balance. It's about being tough on crime, and sometimes that means you're putting the wrong person behind bars.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. By trying to seize far more power than is necessary over American citizens, the federal government is destroying its own legitimacy. We face a choice not of anarchy or authoritarianism, but a choice of limited government or unlimited government .

Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws.

Our criminal justice system has swallowed up too many people I love.

Our criminal justice system has swallowed up too many people I love. I am proud to join the ACLU in the fight to make mass incarceration a thing of the past.

I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.

I think some parts of the American justice system have gone haywire.

I think the biggest problem in our country is mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex. From the Rockefeller drug laws to stand your ground to stop and frisk, all these are pointing people, especially and disproportionately black and brown people, towards the criminal-justice system. It's depleting whole generations of people.

Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.

Overcriminalization has become a national plague.

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons.

Too many young African-American and Latino men ended up in jail for nonviolent offenses.