"Brutality and insolence of policemen have increased greatly, and the Police Commissioners seldom, if ever,
convict officers for these offenses. Humble citizens of all races today are in more danger from the
policemen's clubs than they are from the assaults of criminals. The inaction of the Commissioners in the
cases of the Negroes is entirely consistent with their general conduct in all citizens' complaints."
- Frank Moss, October 1, 1900
* * *
"State prison construction budgets are up 73% since fiscal year 1987. 44 states are building new prisons or expanding
existing ones."
- Corrections Compendium, 1992
* * *
"The Supreme Court is steadily eroding the protections against police excess promised by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth
and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution."
- Dan Baum, The Nation, June 29, 1992
* * *
The [Supreme] Court during the past decade let police obtain search warrants on the strength of anonymous tips. It did away
with the need for warrants when police want to search luggage, trash cans, car interiors, bus passengers, fenced private
property and barns."
- Dan Baum
* * *
"[The prison guards are] capable of committing daily atrocities and obscenities, smiling the smile of the angels all the while."
- Jean Harris
* * *
"What I'd like to see police do is deal with important issues and not these sorts of victimless crimes when society is
riddled with problems."
- Alderman Rodney Barker
* * *
"Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy."
- Orson Wells
* * *
"The police are not here to create disorder. The police are here to preserve disorder."
- Mayor Richard Daley
* * *
"Stan Guffey, a high school basketball referee, was working a game in Oklahoma City when a policeman came onto the court
and arrested him for not calling enough fouls during the game."
- 1993 World Almanac and Book of Facts
* * *
"When you're a lawman and you're dealing with people, you do a whole lot better if you go not so much by the book but by
the heart."
- Andy Taylor, "The Andy Griffith Show"
* * *
"George Bush has increased our prison capacity by 118 percent in three years. The Department of Justice's budget has gone
up 70 percent in three years. It's one of the fastest growing agencies in government."
- Attorney General Barr, February 24, 1992
* * *
"There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people."
- Hubert H. Humphrey
* * *
"We do not want a police state, but we need a state of law and order, and neither mob violence nor police brutality have
any place in America."
- Hubert H. Humphrey
* * *
"Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you."
- George Bernard Shaw, Misalliance, 1914
* * *
The police can't stop an intruder, mugger, or stalker from hurting you. They can pursue him only after he has hurt or
killed you. Protecting yourself from harm is your responsibility, and you are far less likely to be hurt in a neighborhood
of gun-owners than in one of disarmed citizens – even if you don't own a gun yourself."
– Harry Browne
* * *
" If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers,
the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the
law's protection most! – and listens to their testimony."
– James Baldwin, African-American Author, "No Name in the Street"
* * *
