DNA exonerations have been responsible for releasing over 250 innocent people from prison. And it has helped expose cases of prosecutorial misconduct all over the country. ibid.
From the one crime recognise them all as culprits. Virgil, Aeneid
Is it, in heav’n, a crime to love too well? Alexander Pope, Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, 1717
Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it. Henry Thomas Buckle
The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling but from an over-sensitivity for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires. Edmund Burke
Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult is it to bring it home. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892
It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes. ibid.
‘Excellent,’ I cried. ‘Elementary,’ said he. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1894
Ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity ... is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. ibid.
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four, 1890
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? ibid.
The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless. Arthur Conan Doyle
The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing. Voltaire
I am mortified to be told that in the United States of America the sale of a book can become a subject of enquiry, and of criminal enquiry too. Thomas Jefferson
Debt is a prolific mother of poverty and of crime. Benjamin Disraeli
It excites him to be around what he calls the criminal type. Some men are like that. Some women too. The Hustler 1961 starring Paul Newman & Jackie Gleason & Piper Laurie & George C Scott & Myron McCormick & Murray Hamilton & Stefan Gierasch et al, director Robert Rossen, Shark to her & him on tour
He can be the most potent weapon imaginable to ensure that the government is not returned at the forthcoming election. The government’s big boast as you know, sir, is the way they have dealt with crime over the last few months. Recruiting brutal young ruffs into the police. Proposing debilitating and will-sapping techniques of conditioning. Oh we’ve seen it all before in other countries. The thin end of the wedge. Before we know where we are we shall have the full apparatus of totalitarianism. This young boy is a living witness to these diabolical proposals: the people, the common people, must know, must see. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. The tradition of liberty is all. The common people will let it go – oh yes – they will sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be led, sir. Driven. Pushed. A Clockwork Orange 1971 starring Malcolm McDowell & Patrick Magee & Michael Bates & Warren Clarke & John Clive & Adrienne Corri & Carl Duering & Paul Farrell & Clive Francis & Michael Gover et al, director Stanley Kubrick, Frank to political accomplice on dog-n-bone
When I was born the world was a far simpler case: it was all just cops and robbers. Layer Cake 2004 starring Daniel Craig & Colm Meaney & Kenneth Cranham & George Harris & Jamie Foreman & Sienna Miller & Michael Gambon & Marcel Iures & Tom Hardy & Tamer Hassan & Ben Whishaw & Burn Gorman et al, director Matthew Vaughn
You’re all crooks, aren’t you, of one kind and another. The League of Gentlemen 1960 starring Jack Hawkins & Nigel Patrick & Roger Livesey & Richard Attenborough & Bryan Forbes & Norman Bird & Terence Alexander & Richard Attenborough et al, director Basil Dearden, Hyde to gang
My criminal career is just about to blossom. ibid.
I was a criminal. Presently I’m just unemployed. London Boulevard 2010 starring Colin Farrell & Keira Knightley & Ray Winstone & Anna Friel & David Thewlis & Ben Chaplin & Eddie Marsan & Sanjeev Bhaskar & Stephen Graham & Gerald Homeet al, director William Monahan
I’ll say one thing for crooks – they give you an honest day’s work. We’re No Angels 1954 starring Aldo Ray & Humphrey Bogart & Peter Ustinov & Joan Bennett & Basil Rathbone & Leo G Carroll & John Baer & Gloria Talbott & Lea Penman & John Smith et al, director Michael Curtiz, shopkeeper
Beat their heads in, gouge their eyes out, cut their throats, as soon as we’ve washed the dishes. ibid.
Our Billy wasn’t born a criminal, Clarice; he was made one through years of systematic abuse. The Silence of the Lambs 1991 starring Jodie Foster & Anthony Hopkins & Scott Glen & Ted Levine & Anthony Heald & Brooke Smith & Diane Baker & Kasi Lemmons & Frankie Fraison & Tracey Walter et al, director Jonathan Demme
Wanted in fourteen counties of this state, the condemned is found guilty of the crimes of murder, armed robbery of citizens and state banks and post offices, the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, selling prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money and contrary to the laws of this state the condemned is guilty of using marked cards … The Good, The Bad & The Ugly [Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo] 1966 starring Clint Eastwood & Lee van Cleef & Eli Wallach & Aldo Giuffre & Al Mulock & Antonio Casas & John Bartha & Claudio Scarchillio & Sandro Scarchilli & Antonio Molion Rojo, director Sergio Leone, sentence passed with noose round Tuco’s neck
America's punitive and reactive response to crime is an integral part of the new social Darwinism, the criminal justice counterpart of an increasingly harsh attack on living standards and social supports, especially for the poor ... America [is] a society in which a permanent state of social disintegration is held in check only by the creation of a swollen apparatus of confinement and control that has no counterpart in our own history or in any other industrial democracy. Professor Elliott Currie
I made my mistakes but in all my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service. I’ve earned every cent. And in all of my years in public life I have never obstructed justice … I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President in a crook.. Well, I’m not a crook. Richard Milhous Nixon, speech press conference 17th November 1973
Well, When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal. Richard Milhous Nixon, interview David Frost 1977
Alcohol is also linked with serious crime. Up to 73% of felonies in the USA are alcohol related. Drunken States of America, National Geographic 2012
Catholics and Communists have committed great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate. Graham Greene, The Comedians, 1966
In the United States, the most privatised capitalised country in the world, it should come as no surprise that it also has the largest prison system in the world. Growing every year. Statistically, most of these people are uneducated and come from poor, deprived societies. And, contrary to propaganda, it is this environmental conditioning which lures them into violent and criminal behaviour. However, society looks the other way ... Billions are spent each year on prisons and police, while only a fraction is spent on programs for poverty ... As long as we have an economic system that prefers, indeed creates, scarcity and deprivation, crime will never go away. Zeitgeist, 2007
The cure for crime is not the electric chair, but the high chair. J Edgar Hoover
I don’t really feel guilty about anything I did. I felt justified in what I done. But it was all survival. Survival of the fittest. It was a dog each dog world the criminal world. That’s life. Freddie Foreman, interview Britain’s Biggest Heists
1) Californian bush-fires: she was a sixty-eight-year-old grandmother
2) Shopkeeper grabs robber’s false leg
3) America’s oldest bank robber Hunter Red Rowntree aged 91
4) Blind robber
5) Wheelchair robber
6) Homicidal Buddhist
7) Disorderly Nun
8) Lord Brocket jailed for a £5 million fraud
9) Peace-loving tree-huggers at Twyford Down
10) Abraham Lincoln robs cornershop
11) Man robs store with clear plastic bag on head