Violent Crime Quotes

Why Does He Do That?
That's the number one question, isn't it? Maybe it's his drinking, you say. Maybe it's his learning disabilities. It's his job; he hates it. He's stressed. I think he's bipolar. It's his mother's fault; she spoiled him rotten. It's the drugs. If only he didn't use. It's his temper. He's selfish. It's the pornography; he's obsessed.
The list could go on and on. You could spend many years trying to pinpoint it and never get a definite answer. The fact is, many people have these problems and they aren't abusive. Just because someone is an alcoholic doesn't mean he is abusive. Men hate their jobs all the time and aren't abusive. Bipolar? Okay. Stressed? Who isn't! Do you see where I am going with this?
Off the subject a bit, when someone commits a violent crime, they always report in the news about his possible motive. As human beings, we need to somehow make sense of things. If someone murders someone, do you think it makes the family of the victim feel better to know the murderer's motive? No. Except for self-defense, there really is no excuse for murder. Motive, if there is any, is irrelevant.
The same is true of abuse. You could spend your whole life going round and round trying to figure out why. The truth is, the why doesn't matter. There are only two reasons why men commit abuse - because they want to do so and because they can.
You want to know why. In many ways, you might feel like you need to know. But, if you could com ~ Beth Praed

I think 'Dirty Harry' was probably sensitive toward the victims of violent crime. ~ Clint Eastwood

I think that dealing with guns is one way to handle the violent-crime issues that we have in this country. ~ Barack Obama

When I worked as a prosecutor in Richmond, Virginia in the 1990s, that city, like so much of America, was experiencing horrific levels of violent crime. But to describe it that way obscures an important truth: for the most part, white people weren't dying; black people were dying. Most white people could drive around the problem. ~ James Comey

Probably fewer than 2% of handguns and well under 1% of all guns will ever be involved in a violent crime. Thus, the problem of criminal gun violence is concentrated within a very small subset of gun owners, indicating that gun control aimed at the general population faces a serious needle-in-the-haystack problem. ~ Gary Kleck

The NYPD has too urgent a mission and too few officers for us to waste time and resources on broad, unfocused surveillance. We have a responsibility to protect New Yorkers from violent crime or another terrorist attack - and we uphold the law in doing so. ~ Raymond Kelly

Bizarre though it is, people seem more inclined to rally around and identify with the victimizer than with the person who has suffered an attack. Eager to distance themselves from the victim position, influenced unconsciously, I suspect, by the pervasive taste for violence that infects our national life, people all too often direct their interest and even their sympathy to the perpetrator of a violent crime rather than to the victim. ~ Natalie Shainess

One of the things I learned is that you've got to deal with the underlying social problems if you want to have an impact on crime - that it's not a coincidence that you see the greatest amount of violent crime where you see the greatest amount of social dysfunction. ~ Eric Holder

Chicago is known for good steaks, expensive stores and beautiful architecture. Unfortunately, the Windy City also enjoys a reputation for corrupt politics, violent crime, and some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere in the country. ~ Bob Barr

In Freakonomics, we examined the causes of the rise and fall of violent crime in the United States. In 1960, crime began a sudden climb. By 1980, the homicide rate had doubled, reaching a historic peak. For several years crime stayed perilously high, but in the early 1990s it began to fall and kept falling. So what happened?
In Freakonomics, we identified one missing factor - the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s. The theory was jarring but simple. A rise in abortion meant that fewer unwanted children were being born, which meant fewer children growing up in the sort of difficult circumstances that increase the likelihood of criminality. ~ Steven D. Levitt

Violent crime is a solved problem - all they have to do is repeal the laws that keep those intelligent, capable, and responsible men and women from arming themselves, and violent crime evaporates like dry ice on a hot summer day. ~ L. Neil Smith

In rural areas the majority of the victims of violent crime know their assailants (indeed, are probably married to them); in cities, the killer and the mugger come out of the anonymous dark, their faces unrecognized, their motives obscure. ~ Jonathan Raban

For Lorenz, virgins were not a part of his world. He was skeptical of many things I said. Later, when the serology reports proved that what I had said was not a lie, that I had been a virgin, and that I was telling the truth, he could not respect me enough. I think he felt responsible, somehow. It was, after all, in his world where this hideous thing had happened to me. A world of violent crime. ~ Alice Sebold

As a city, we have to face the reality that New York's minority communities experience a disproportionate share of violent crime. ~ Raymond Kelly

The figures for 2002 are even more surprising. Out of 57 million dead, only 172,000 people died in war and 569,000 died of violent crime (a total of 741,000 victims of human violence). In contrast, 873,000 people committed suicide.5 It turns out that in the year following the 9/11 attacks, despite all the talk of terrorism and war, the average person was more likely to kill himself than to be killed by a terrorist, a soldier or a drug dealer. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Yet following the handgun confiscation in England, crimes committed with handguns jumped nearly 40% from 1999 to 2000. Violent crime in England now surpasses the US violent crime rate. ~ Charl Van Wyk

A majority of the crime in the downtown is property crime. There have been a few larcenies and burglaries, but robberies and assaults are not common in the downtown. There isn't usually any violent crime. ~ Greg Smith

I love all kinds of movies. I'd especially like to make some, you know, violent crime drama. ~ Rob Zombie

In the year 2000, wars caused the deaths of 310,000 individuals, and violent crime killed another 520,000. Each and every victim is a world destroyed, a family ruined, friends and relatives scarred for life. Yet from a macro perspective these 830,000 victims comprised only 1.5 per cent of the 56 million people who died in 2000. That year 1.26 million people died in car accidents (2.25 per cent of total mortality) and 815,000 people committed suicide (1.45 per cent).4 ~ Yuval Noah Harari

We cannot incarcerate ourselves out of addiction. Addiction is a medical crisis that - when it comes to nonviolent offenders - warrants medical interventions, not incarceration. Decades later, data unequivocally illustrates that this war has been a massive failure. It has not only failed to reduce violent crime, but arrest rates - throughout its tenure - have continuously ascended even when crime rates have descended. ~ Dominique DuBois Gilliard

And for any victim of a violent crime, when you actually get to go in and realize and see their faces and know that they can't hurt you any more, there is no feeling like that. It finally frees you from a lot of demons. ~ Patty Hearst

I think we should be pushing for amnesty and a path to citizenship for every undocumented person residing in the United States who has not committed a violent crime, with a special emphasis on keeping families together. ~ Conor Oberst

Statistically, the odds that any given rape was committed by a serial offender are around 90 percent," Lisak said. "The research is clear on this. The foremost issue for police and prosecutors should be that you have a predator out there. By reporting this rape, the victim is giving you an opportunity to put this guy away. If you decline to pursue the case because the victim was drunk, or had a history of promiscuity, or whatever, the offender is almost certainly going to keep raping other women. We need cops and prosecutors who get it that 'nice guys' like Frank are serious criminals. ~ Jon Krakauer

Curiously, for instance, the drop in violent crime is most pronounced in cities with high immigrant populations. ~ Matt Taibbi

As anyone who regularly reads newspapers or true-crime books knows, a significant percentage of violent crime, from kidnappings to shooting sprees, is the result of the frustrated sexual impulses and desires of males. By socializing guys like Sasha, Mystery and I were making the world a safer place. ~ Neil Strauss

Every single person in jail for a violent crime had a nightmare childhood. ~ Rob Reiner

I believe that the high rates of property crime (and some of the increase in violent crime) are part of the price you pay for freedom. ~ James Q. Wilson

The state's exclusive claim to violence to uphold its rule of law is, according to many, the very essence of statehood. For instance, in 1919, the eminent German sociologist Max Weber defined the state as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."6 This definition remains widely used today, and states that cannot maintain a monopoly of force and endure civil war or frequent violent crime are routinely described as "weak," "fragile," or "failed" states. ~ Sean McFate

A father and a mother who are not honored are essentially adult peers of their children. They are not parents. No generation knows better than ours the terrible consequences of growing up without a father. Fatherless boys are far more likely to grow up and commit violent crime, mistreat women, and act out against society in every other way. Girls who do not have a father to honor - and, hopefully, to love as well - are more likely to seek the wrong men and to be promiscuous at an early age. ~ Dennis Prager

I believe that the death penalty is the ultimate deterrent to violent crime ... period. ~ Troy King

There is a legitimate argument over whether the death penalty effectively deters violent crime, although my personal observation is that not one of the criminals who have been executed over the years has ever killed again. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

Sexual assault is the single least-reported violent crime. And when it is reported, the victims are blamed and shamed. Or not believed. Or silenced. Punished. Or their attackers are never prosecuted at all. ~ Amber Tamblyn

In 1962 and 1963, there were two abominable decisions out of the Supreme Court, and that was taking prayer out of school, and taking bible reading out of school. But you know, if you look at the statistics, two very critical things happened after that date. Number one: teen pregnancy skyrocketed. Number two: violent crime skyrocketed. ~ Rafael Cruz

The authors analyzed 695 news items. The content of 47.9% (n = 333) of the articles was not strictly related to mental illness, but rather clinical or psychiatric terms were used metaphorically, and frequently in a pejorative sense. The remaining 52.1% (n = 362) consisted of news items related specifically to mental illness. Of these, news items linking mental illness to danger were the most common (178 texts, 49.2%), specifically those associating mental illness with violent crime (130 texts, 35.9%) or a danger to others (126 texts, 34.8%). The results confirm the hypothesis that the press treats mental illness in a manner that encourages stigmatization. The authors appeal to the press's responsibility to society and advocate an active role in reducing the stigma towards mental illness.
Reinforcing Stigmatization: Coverage of Mental Illness in Spanish Newspapers. Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives. Volume 19, Issue 11, 2014 ~ Enric Aragonès

I always say, "Never give your lead character an infant. Make them a recovering alcoholic, or the victim of a horrible violent crime because you can really never truly recover from that." It's a story pitfall. ~ Julie Plec

I rise today in strong support of the Children's Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act, because it is a commonsense way to protect our schoolchildren from pedophiles. ~ Ric Keller

Where you have the most armed citizens in America, you have the lowest violent crime rate. Where you have the worst gun control, you have the highest crime rate. ~ Ted Nugent

There is a significant moral difference between a person who commits a violent crime and a person who tries to cross a border illegally in order to put food on the family table. Such migrants may violate our laws against illicit entry, but if that's all they do they are trespassers, not criminals. They deserve to have their dignity respected. ~ Madeleine K. Albright

When two or more survivors, she said, were gathered together, they could breathe their mutual auras in and out to set up flows of rapidly spreading charges that balance out the life of the air and reduce the tension, madness, and violent crime caused like lightening by an imbalance between earth and heaven. ~ Joseph McElroy

I have a letter from a police inspector, retired after some 30 years in rural Derbyshire, alerting me to the potential impact of a total ban on hunting on relationships between the police and the community in rural areas - a particularly significant consideration in current circumstances. Is it, I ask myself, sensible to divert valuable police time to enforce a ban on hunting when they are under so much pressure from violent crime? ~ Hazel Byford, Baroness Byford

In other words, in the same way that mass incarceration surged because of a real thing, it's finally starting to ebb because of a real thing: the actual, concrete decline in violent crime that started in the early 90s and which appears to be permanent. America is simply a safer place than it used to be, and looks set to stay that way. ~ Kevin Drum

Multiple studies, including from the Justice Department, have shown that the guns used in homicides, including the killing of police officers, overwhelmingly tend to be small-caliber handguns. Moreover, gun ownership has increased over the past 20 years - the same period in which both the violent crime rate and the killing of police officers have been in decline. ~ Radley Balko

Many Europeans, while admiring the strength and power of the American economy, undoubtedly feel that the system of social values which prevails in the United States, manifested in the acute problems evident in the inner cities and the level of violent crime, for example, leaves much to be desired. ~ Paul Ormerod

Minor, seemingly insignificant quality-of-life crimes, they said, were Tipping Points for violent crime. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I hear very little from evangelicals about the impact of gun proliferation on violent crime, much less an issue like nuclear disarmament. I hear almost nothing about health care for the poor and protecting widows and orphans, both biblical mandates, and scant mention of the thirteen million children who die worldwide from malnutrition in a year. I hear scornful dismissal of concerns about global warming, an issue viewed seriously by the vast majority of scientists. I hear talk about family values, but when an administration proposed legislation to allow mothers to take unpaid leave after childbirth, conservative religious groups opposed it. ~ Philip Yancey

Coming up in the Bay Area and being African American in a city that has a history of complex issues of violent crime, interaction with the police is always intense. That's something you have to learn. My mom taught me at a young age that if ever a cop stops you, you put your hands up and freeze - don't move. ~ Ryan Coogler

The Right thinks that the breakdown of the family is the source of crime and poverty, and this they very insightfully blame on the homosexuals, which would be amusing were it not so tragic. Families and 'family values' are crushed by grinding poverty, which also makes violent crime and drugs attractive alternatives to desperate young men and sends young women into prostitution. Family values are no less corrupted by the corrosive effects of individualism, consumerism, and the accumulation of wealth. Instead of shouting this from the mountain tops, the get-me-to-heaven-and-the-rest-be-damned Christianity the Christian Right preaches is itself a version of selfish spiritual capitalism aimed at netting major and eternal dividends, and it fits hand in glove with American materialism and greed. ~ John D. Caputo

There is a fascination about crime, which is understandable, but hardly anyone talks about the families of victims of violent crime and the devastation that is beyond the victim alone. ~ Werner Herzog

If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore what he must be taught to fear is his victim. ~ Jeff Cooper

After more than two decades of trying to destroy the firearms rights of more than 80 million law-abiding American gun owners - and statistically failing to show any impact on violent crime - the Brady 'Campaign Against Illegal Guns' is yet another crusade whose ultimate goal is to trample the Second Amendment into dust. ~ Alan Gottlieb

But the steep drop in violent crime presented police with a problem. If making arrests is the only way to advance in your career, but crime is dropping, what do you do? Furthermore, what to do if the only way to make a living wage is to rack up as much overtime as possible? ~ Matt Taibbi

Men: Stand in solidarity with women. Women, if you were born female, you were born on a battlefield. You will be punished for even saying that out loud, but the grim truth is you're going to be punished no matter what for the 'sin' of being female. Battering is the most commonly committed violent crime in the United States. That's a man beating a woman. Globally, half of all women will experience life-threatening violence from a man. Half. That's more hatred than I can comprehend. Right now, that battlefield is such a slaughter that we can't even collect our wounded. ~ Lierre Keith

So: Police are bureaucrats with weapons. If you think about it, this is a really ingenious trick. Because when most of think about police, we do not think of them as enforcing regulation. We think of them as fighting crime, and when we think of "crime," the kind of crime we have in our minds in violent crime. Even though, in fact, what police mostly do is exactly the opposite: they bring the threat of force to bear on situations that would otherwise have nothing to do with it. ~ David Graeber

Any movement at all that reduces disease, that reduces overdoses, that reduces property crime, that reduces violent crime, is good. ~ Gary Johnson

We live in the worst country in the world. At least we do for lazy, inefficient, office-bound police, whose response to an extraordinary rise in violent crime is to order more speed cameras. ~ Jeremy Clarkson

The first one, his first sight of a dead body. That had changed everything. A fall from innocence, and the start of a lifelong fascination with violent crime. ~ Christopher Fowler

I just don't understand, if they see numbers [of CEO salaries]that represent people, how they can somehow skirt around that and morally justify taking or ruining those lives and leaving them with nothing. That, to me, is violent crime. It's certainly more violent than selling grams of pot to other adults. ~ Eddie Vedder

Women are an eternal subject, which is a lot like being subjected, or subjugated, or a subject nation, even. There are comparatively few articles about whether men are happy or why their marriages also fail or how nice or not their bodies are, even the movie-star bodies. They are the gender that commits the great majority of crime, particularly violent crime, and they are the majority of suicides as well. American men are falling behind women in attending college, and have fallen farther in the current economic depression than women, which you'd think would make them interesting subjects of inquiry. ~ Rebecca Solnit

The War on Drugs has failed, but it's worse than that. It is actively harming our society. Violent crime is thriving in the shadows to which the drug trade has been consigned. People who genuinely need help can't get it. Neither can people who need medical marijuana to treat terrible diseases. We are spending billions, filling up our prisons with non-violent offenders and sacrificing our liberties. ~ Sting

Cry Wolf' is a hard-boiled thriller written at break-neck pace of political corruption and organised, very violent crime. ~ Mike Ripley

I want to be optimistic because I don't think man is intrinsically violent. ~ Bruce Kent

Without any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, it was enough to accept God as a father, to regard slavery as a crime. I ~ Frederick Douglass

Congress should fund research on the effects that violent video games have on young minds ... We don't benefit from ignorance. We don't benefit from not knowing the science. ~ Barack Obama

The crimes the law can understand are not the worst crimes. ~ Larry McMurtry

Dr. Kevorkian has just unstrapped me from the gurney after yet another controlled near-death experience. I was lucky enough on this trip to interview none other than the late Adolf Hitler.
I was gratified to learn that he now feels remorse for any actions of his, however indirectly, which might have had anything to do with the violent deaths suffered by thirty-five million people during World War II. He and his mistress Eva Braun, of course, were among those casualties, along with four million other Germans, six million Jews, eighteen million members of the Soviet Union, and so on.
I paid my dues along with everybody else," he said.
It is his hope that a modest monument, possibly a stone cross, since he was a Christian, will be erected somewhere in his memory, possibly on the grounds of the United Nations headquarters in New York. It should be incised, he said, with his name and dates 1889-1945. Underneath should be a two-word sentence in German: "Entschuldigen Sie."
Roughly translated into English, this comes out, "I Beg Your Pardon," or "Excuse Me. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Suppose a top politician, entertainment figure, or sports star said it didn't really matter who shot Lincoln or why, who attacked Pearl Harbor, the Alamo or the USS Liberty. Imagine the derision. Imagine the ridicule. Imagine the loss in credibility and marketing revenue. Now imagine if a well-respected academic 'who should know better' said exactly the same thing. It doesn't really matter who committed a great crime; history had nothing to teach us; we should never waste precious time trying to apprehend the perpetrators, nor understand their motives but focus only on the outcome of their foul deeds.

Well, that is exactly what Noam Chomsky appears to believe. Do not focus on the plot or the plotters or the clever planning of any crime but only the aftermath. Strangely, I had always thought linguistics was the scientific study of language rather than a lame attempt at disinformation. ~ Douglas Herman

The state's interest in effective crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens' Bill of Rights. ~ John Ashcroft

First in France, first in Romania - by land and sea to the English and Paris. Marvellous deeds by that great alliance. The violent brute will lose Lorraine. ~ Nostradamus

That Zsadist was late was no big surprise. Z was one giant, violent fuck-you to the world. ~ J.R. Ward

We're the endangered species, not the spotted owl. The "population explosion" is a prop of the Western progressive's bizarre death-cultism. We are so bad, so polluting, so exploitative, so violent, so destructive that we owe it to the world not to be born in the first place. ~ Mark Steyn

Gun control advocates used to claim that more guns meant more crime. Research demonstrated, though, that more guns meant less crime. As the criminology argument faded, gun control advocates began arguing guns were a public health problem. ~ Steven Milloy

You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who accuse falsely. ~ Thucydides

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. ~ James Russell Lowell

When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. ~ Sarah Kendzior

Think of your new position as that of a business mercenary; fighting the war for the mighty dollar – after all, it is money that holds all the real power in this world, is it not? ~ D.B. Stephens

A sincere acquaintance with ourselves teaches us humility; and from humility springs that benevolence which compassionates the transgressors we condemn, and prevents the punishments we inflict from themselves partaking of crime, in being rather the wreakings of revenge than the chastisements of virtue. ~ Jane Porter

One could plot violent espionage and still hope for dessert. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Politics, war, marriage, crime, adultery. Everything that exists in the world has something to do with money. ~ Graham Greene

Much is made of the accelerating brutality of young people's crimes, but rarely does our concern for dangerous children translateinto concern for children in danger. We fail to make the connection between the use of force on children themselves, and violent antisocial behavior, or the connection between watching father batter mother and the child deducing a link between violence and masculinity. ~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin

The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime. ~ Rex Stout

When you think about the period in which Agatha Christie's crime novels were written, they are actually quite edgy for the time. ~ Sara Sheridan

There are a lot of myths which make the human race cruel and barbarous and unkind. Good and Evil, Sin and Crime, Free Will and the like delusions made to excuse God for damning men and to excuse men for crucifying each other. ~ Clarence Darrow

Currently, we allow our political and business leaders to get away with murder. Now is the time to change that. We need direct liability for those who are destroying our future and this planet. We need fast, profound and systemic change. History only moves forward when courageous people get up and act. That's why I support this citizens' initiative to recognise ecocide as the crime it is. ~ Kumi Naidoo

Most psychopaths are not violent (although most serial murderers and serial rapists are psychopaths). They are people, mostly men, who have no moral emotions, no attachment systems, and no concerns for others.5 Because they feel no shame, embarrassment, or guilt, they find it easy to manipulate people into giving them money, sex, and trust. ~ Jonathan Haidt

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"- Rob ~ Nick Hornby

Behind every fortune there is a crime. ~ Honore De Balzac

I don't think a reporter necessarily becomes an arm of law enforcement. I think a reporter is like any other citizen. If a citizen can do his or her duty as a witness, if they have information about a crime, or if they have information about a criminal group, I think that there's a duty on the part of the citizen. ~ Edwin Meese

Trust no one. You may be working with the last honest cop in Mexicali, but why bet your life on it? ~ Michael Connelly

Through your support of UN peacekeeping, you can help to make this tantalizing word-"peace"-a reality for all the world's citizens. Together, we can spread the message that UN peacekeeping is essential. Without it, the world would be a much less stable, and more violent, place. ~ Tim Wirth

Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows. ~ Imelda Marcos

Society is the true sphere of human virtue. In social, active life, difficulties will perpetually be met with; restraints of many kinds will be necessary; and studying to behave right in respect of these is a discipline of the human heart, useful to others, and improving to itself. Suffering is no duty, but where it is necessary to avoid guilt, or to do good; nor pleasure a crime, but where it strengthens the influence of bad inclinations, or lessens the generous activity of virtue. ~ Elizabeth Carter

Crime and legal stories, broadly speaking, are just where my interest happens to lie. ~ William Landay

To kill one man is to be guilty of a capital crime, to kill ten men is to increase the guilt ten-fold, to kill a hundred men is to increase it a hundred-fold. This the rulers of the earth all recognize, and yet when it comes to the greatest crime - waging war on another state - they praise it! . . . If a man on seeing a little black were to say it is black, but on seeing a lot of black were to say it is white, it would be clear that such a man could not distinguish black and white.... So those who recognize a small crime as such, but do not recognize the wickedness of the greatest crime of all - the waging of war on another state - but actually praise it - cannot distinguish right and wrong.104 ~ Steven Pinker

In place of the old beliefs of a civilization based on godliness, judgment and historical loyalty, young people are given the new beliefs of a society based on equality and inclusion, and are told that the judgment of other lifestyles is a crime ... The "non-judgmental" attitude towards other cultures goes hand-in-hand with a fierce denunciation of the culture that might have been one's own ~ Roger Scruton

The pamphlets going back to London telling of the violent derring-dos of the Bahamian pirates were the ones that brought infamy to the names of Charles Vane and Blackbeard. How much of that is really documented history? It carries a flavor with it, but take all this with a pinch of salt. ~ Ray Stevenson