Crime

If a man commit murder, let him be punished as a murderer, and let no regard be paid to his plea of conscience for committing the action; but let not the opinions, which led to the action be meddled with. —Joseph Priestley. Essay on the First Principles of Government,...

Criminalization of drugs Drugs stunt young lives, break up families, injure babies before they are even born. There are those in Britain who say we should legalize certain drugs. As though burglary could be defeated by legalizing theft. How typical of the muddled...

Most people who commit murder, rape, or other heinous crimes are of low intellect. They have often been misled, by exposure to other criminals, movies, or violent video games, into believing there is nothing particularly wrong with heinous crime—in fact, some...

I have honestly been getting my act together, because I truly want to be that loving husband to my wife and that good father/role model to my children. I swear to you that I WILL NOT let you down. Let my wife or children down. Let my family down. Let society down....

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their...

If prisons are simply places for criminals to wait out their sentence, if prisoners are allowed to behave like thugs, or are treated like animals, they will come out worse than when they went in. The purpose of prison is to punish and reform. To be reformed, they must...

An important part of reforming a criminal’s character is to ensure that he makes amends for his violation of the rights of others. Moreover it is incumbent on the government to ensure that the victims of crime are compensated. To address both requirements, victims of...

Prisoners who will one day be released into society need to be reformed, not further depraved, by their incarceration. As a rule, felons should not be released until they are as statistically unlikely to commit crime as a law-abiding citizen, of like age and sex, is...

People with no means are obviously criminals, and there are vast numbers of people who use drug dealing, purse snatching, car stealing, burglary, pimping, robbery, identity theft and other criminal means to support themselves. The police should target these people...

No government … can afford … the police necessary to assure our safety unless the overwhelming majority of us are guided by an inner, personal code of morality. And you will not get that inner, personal code of morality unless children are brought up in a family—a...

There is a deep-seated instinct among all children to adopt their parents’ actions and beliefs. When children see their parents commit crime, they learn that crime is morally acceptable. To break this cycle, the offspring of felons need to be given special attention...

Studies clearly show that abused children have a greater propensity to abuse others when they grow up. The government thus has a duty to prevent children from being abused, not only for the child’s sake, but for the sake of future potential victims.

Welfare fosters crime by eliminating the self-esteem that comes from being self-reliant and independent. Those who do not respect themselves are unlikely to respect others.

Most hardened criminals have little education. An educated person possessing the life skills required to make a living will not turn to a life of crime through necessity. Accordingly, all children should be properly educated to the level required to earn a living....

Drug abuse is a major cause of all sorts of crime, including organized crime, official corruption, violent assault, gang-related crime, random murder, motivated murder, prostitution, illegal immigration, embezzlement, domestic violence, and others. It follows that...

The law of nature does not only allow us, but oblige us, to defend ourselves. It is our duty, not only to ourselves, but to the society … If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our property and fortunes, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom. And Cicero...

Released murderers, violent ex-boyfriends who threaten to murder, convicted pedophiles, and violent schizophrenics all represent a clear and present danger to society. Many heinous crimes would simply not occur if these people were isolated from the general...

Small towns have virtually no crime; this is because there is such a small pool of suspects that offenders know they will quickly be detected. This contrasts with big cities; for example, the Los Angles Times’ Homicide Report lists up to ten gang-related murders every...

To be soft on crime is to betray the law-abiding citizen. And to make excuses for the criminal is to offer incentives to dishonesty and violence. Crime flourishes in a culture of excuses … Crime is not a sickness to be cured—it’s a temptation to be resisted, a threat...

Combining DNA profiles with the Individuals Register would save lives by allowing serial killers and rapists to be caught after their first crime. The people of California took a step in the right direction with Proposition 69, which requires the DNA sampling of all...

Cameras are already being used to identify and log every vehicle on the road. This technology can be enhanced by placing multiple radio frequency tags carrying the vehicle serial number on multiple parts including the chassis. Stolen cars, cars whose license plates...

The fact remains that the most direct way to act against crime is to make life as difficult as possible for the potential and actual criminal. This cannot be done cheaply. Increasing the number of police officers on patrol, providing the most up-to-date technology to...

The prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ found in the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is lifted word for word from the 1689 English Bill of Rights. Monarchs of the Dark Ages, in order to maintain their despotic power, had been known to burn their...

Every man in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from the attempts of a...

Penalties should be set by law, not by judges Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine. The mercies of the law will be dispensed equally and impartially to every description of men; those of the judge, or of the executive power,...

It is contrary to justice to allow someone to murder simply because they forgot to take their medication. That is called getting away with murder. Consider this report from the New York Times: Lawyers for a schizophrenic man accused of pushing a woman to her death in...

A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the highway, when perhaps I have not 12’d. in my pocket; this man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver 100l. to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when I am got up again, but draws his...

No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his...

The civil law concerns itself with disputes over contractual rights, the enforcement of commercial laws, and negligence. By contrast, criminal wrongs are marked by such a savage disregard for the rights of others that society as a whole has an interest in ensuring...

Theorists and practical men alike have generally agreed that the primary purpose of the state is to maintain order. But unless the state has the will and capacity to ensure order not only bad but eventually good people will flout its authority. The law-abiding are...