Justice & Policing

Dan Ariely,  Nina Mazar & On Amir (2008) - People like to think of themselves as honest. However, dishonesty pays—and it often pays well. How do people resolve this tension? (...) People behave dishonestly enough to profit but honestly enough to delude themselves of their own integrity.

Norm Crosby - When you go to court you're putting fate in the hands of people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Anatole France - La majestueuse égalité des lois interdit aux riches comme aux pauvres de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans la rue et de voler du pain.

Robert J. Hanlon - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Benoît Hopquin (in Le Monde, May 2014) - Vieille tradition nationale, le vol du corbeau la nuit au-dessus de la Kommandantur.

Scott Horton - The integrity of our criminal justice system rests on the notion that we investigate crimes, not people.

Douglas Hurd - Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.

Italian proverb - Chi fa la legge servar la degge. English: Who makes the law must observe it.  French: Qui fait la loi la doit observer.

Juvenal - Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Robert Mark (Metropolitan Police Commissioner, 1972) - The basic test of a decent police force is that it catches more criminals than it employs.

Attributed to Sir James Mathew - In England justice is open to all - just like the Ritz.

Stanton Samenow (from Inside the Criminal Mind, 1984-2022) - This is how a criminal thinks [:] just thinking something makes it so.

Stanton Samenow (from Inside the Criminal Mind, 1984-2022) - The criminal as a child takes shortcuts, blames others for his difficulties, lies about what he has done or failed to do, and expects others to suit his requirements rather than suit the requirements of others. His expectations of other people are unrealistic, and he becomes angry when those expectations are not met. Dropping out becomes a way of life, not just with school but also with sports, religious school, organized clubs and activities, music lessons—anything that requires sustained effort and doing things on others’ terms. The excitement he seeks is not to be found in the world of responsible living. The child rejects the school; it is not the school that rejects him.

Adam Smith (in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759) -  Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Thomas Sowell - It is (...) central to totalitarian ideology that it convert questions of fact into questions of motive. Facts are a threat because they are independent of the ideology, and questioning the motives of whoever reports discordant facts is a low-cost way of disposing of them.

Alan Watts - A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest, in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.

Orson Welles - It's the essence of our society that the policeman's job should be hard. He's there to protect, protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals, that's an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman that the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal ...