Restorative Justice Quotes

Non-custodial sentences are certainly something to look at, more support in the community rather than within prisons is something we have to look at. There will of course still be women who need to be in prison, serious offenders, but I think there is scope to look at that number and I think that number could come down.

Violence is the only way to answer violence.

Boston's justice system is in serious need of reform. Many of its policies and practices are antiquated, expensive, and don't really even make Boston safer.

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

The victims of crime have been transformed into a group oppressively burdened by a system designed to protect them.

An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

All violence is injustice. Responding to violence with violence is injustice, not only to the other person but also to oneself. Responding to violence with violence resolves nothing; it only escalates violence, anger and hatred. It is only with compassion that we can embrace and disintegrate violence. This is true in relationships between individuals as well as in relationships between nations.

In revenge and punishments we must have our eye not at the evill past, but the future good. That is: It is not lawfull to inflict punishment for any other end, but that the offender may be corrected, or that others warned by his punishment may become better

Punishment is not for revenge, but to lessen crime and reform the criminal.

Violence should not always beget more violence.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

It's important we understand our system seeks justice and not revenge.

Forgiveness is better than revenge

Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.

I'm not in favor of the death penalty. But I'm in favor of locking these people away in maximum security units where they can never get out. They can never escape. They can never be paroled. Lock the bad ones away. But you gotta rethink everybody else.

For some people, their idea of getting tough is longer suspended sentences.

Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment.

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

Instead of a man of peace and love, I have become a man of violence and revenge.

Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.

A reform in the system of criminal jurisprudence, by which the death penalty shall no longer be inflicted; and by which, during that term, a portion of the prison employment shall be for, and the product thereof be faithfully paid over to, the support of the criminal’s family; and by which our so-called prisons shall be virtually transformed into vast reformatory workshops, from which the unfortunate may emerge to be useful members of society, instead of the alienated citizens they now are.

I'd rather lock somebody up and throw away the key and put them in hard labor, the ultimate penalty that the law will allow, but I'm opposed to the death penalty

Generally speaking, the public appetite for criminal justice policy is just tough talk.

Learning about crime in great detail forces us to ask ourselves how it happened, how the victims and perpetrators got to that point, how the law works, how the police force functions.