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About this quote

What does it mean?
A society is responsible for the criminals it produces through its conditions and values.
In plain terms
Society creates the criminals it ends up having.
What can you take from it?
Look at social conditions to understand crime.

Where it applies

  • criminal justice reform
  • policy analysis
  • community building

Putting it to work

  • address root causes of crime
  • evaluate social policies

Questions to consider

  • What conditions lead to crime?
  • How much responsibility does society bear?

Another view

Individual choices also play a significant role in criminal behavior.

More from Emma Goldman

  1. Nothing would prove more disastrous to our ideas, we contended, than to neglect the effect of the internal upon the external, of the psychological motives and …

    Permalink to quote #44

  2. After all, that is what laws are for, to be made and unmade.

    Permalink to quote #46

  3. The people are asleep; they remain indifferent. They forge their own chains and do the bidding of their masters to crucify their Christs. (p. 304)

    Permalink to quote #43

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