Criminal Justice System Quotes

• 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

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• 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.

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• To change criminal justice policy in any meaningful way means to propose changing a very longstanding system. It's not realistic to think you can do it overnight.

  Kamala Harris

  Meaningful, Thinking, Justice

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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

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• I therefore believe that our system does not have a word for failed trial, and that is where the American public does not realize that our criminal justice system sometimes makes mistakes.

  Sam Sheppard

  Mistake, Believe, Justice

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

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, Justice, Criminals

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• The criminal justice system is accurately symbolized by a large sculpture that sits at the foot of the United States attorney's building: four metal circles that interlock. The wheels of justice, as it were, frozen in legal and social gridlock.

  Jonathan Larson

  Circles, Feet, Justice

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• The criminal-justice system is, obviously, the sole source of racial tension in this country [USA] or the key institution to resolving the opportunity gap. It is a part of the broader set of challenges that we face in creating a more perfect union.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Opportunity, Keys

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Life, Money, Men

  "Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

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• Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African American kids are unemployed. It is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.

  Bernie Sanders

  Country, Baby, Kids

  "O'Malley and Sanders interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters in Phoenix" by Martin Pengelly, www.theguardian.com. July 18, 2015.

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• Our current criminal justice system has no provision for restorative justice, in which an offender confronts the damage they have done and tries to make it right for the people they have harmed. [...] Instead, our system of "corrections" is about arm's-length revenge and retribution, all day and all night.

  Piper Kerman

  Revenge, Night, People

  "Orange Is the New Black: My Time in a Women's Prison". Book by Piper Kerman, July 11, 2013.

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• Race determines everything in the criminal justice system.

  Mark Geragos

  Race, Justice, Criminals

  "Exclusive: Juror pushes for new laws following Zimmerman trial" By Josh Levs. Dana Ford, www.cnn.com. July 18, 2013.

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• There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction. My concern is that in making life easier for ourselves we not appear to make it harder for the lower federal courts, imposing upon them the burden of regularly analyzing newly-discovered-evidence-of-innocence claims in capital cases (in which event such federal claims, it can confidently be predicted, will become routine and even repetitive).

  Antonin Scalia

  Practice, Justice, Demand

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• I think the clearest manifestation for anyone who doubts that racism and classism exist in America, all one need do is take a real serious objective look at our criminal justice system.

  Tim McDonald

  Real, Thinking, America

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• Given the realities of the U.S. criminal justice system, the prosecution may be unable to salvage this case. But just because that system fails victims on the regular doesn't mean we have to, too. French commentators are already calling for DSK to jump back into the country's presidential race and ride a wave of sympathy into office. Really, the stakes are greater than even that political prize. If we accept the narrative that only perfect women are raped, we risk sacrificing justice not only for this woman, but for victims of sexual assault everywhere. After all, nobody's perfect.

  Jaclyn Friedman

  Country, Mean, Sacrifice

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• The fate of millions of people—indeed the future of the black community itself—may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society.

  Michelle Alexander

  Fate, People, Justice

  Michelle Alexander (2013). “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, p.16, The New Press

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• One out of three black men are in the criminal justice system in some form. Their despair is beginning to resonate through the entire culture; that is why suburban children want rap music.

  Robert Bly

  Children, Rap, Men

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