When has human fortune ever been regarded as something better than a crime, or been enjoyed in any other way than in secret, directly contrary to the laws of God and man?
Halldor Laxness
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Existing criminology is insufficient to isolate barbarism. It is insufficient because the idea of "crime" in existing criminology is artificial, for what is called crime is really an infringement of "existing laws", whereas "laws" are very often a manifestation of barbarism and violence. Such are the prohibiting laws of different kinds which abound in modern life. The number of these laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm. On the other hand, unquestionable crimes escape the field of vision of criminology, either because they have not recognized the form of crime or because they surpass a certain scale. In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity.
This limitation of the field of vision of criminology together with the absence of an exact and permanent definition of the concept of crime is one of the chief characteristics of our culture.P. D. Ouspensky
People are always shocked when they ask me what I plan to do about crime as governor and my answer comes back as "Nothing!" Does the issue of crime need to be addressed? You bet it does. But, just as with many other social issues, I don't think that legislation is the most effective arena in which to fight crime. We already have tons of laws on the books. Most of those laws would work more effectively if we just enforced them better.
As governor, there isn't a lot I can do beyond that to crack down on crime. Law enforcement is really a local issue. It's the cops' job to tighten down on criminals.
Politicians always like to say "I'm gonna fight crime!" because it makes them sound great and gets them votes. But what can a politician do to fight crime?Jesse Ventura
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime.
Emma Goldman
Our only crime consisted of decreeing our own laws and applying them to all without exception. Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which effected the interests of the United Fruit Company. Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights.
Jacobo Arbenz Guzman
Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.
Robertson Davies
Laxness, Halldor
Layard, Austen Henry
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