Arresting a single drunk or a single vagrant who has harmed no identifiable person seems unjust, and in a sense it is. But failing to do anything about a score of drunks or a hundred vagrants may destroy an entire… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
Police ought to protect communities as well as individuals.... Just as physicians now recognize the importance of fostering health rather than simply treating illness, so the police - and the rest of us - ought to recognize the importance of… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
What most needs explanation is not why some people are criminals, but why most people are not. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
I believe we ought to subsidize some health care for the poor, but Medicare subsidizes everyone's health care — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
Character is not the enemy of self-expression and personal freedom, it is their necessary precondition. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
I believe that the high rates of property crime (and some of the increase in violent crime) are part of the price you pay… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
I will have an administrative system where there is no way to extricate red tape. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
In terms of other functions, we are making a mistake about insisting on a public school monopoly. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
Community-based policing has now come to mean everything. It's a slogan. It has come to mean so many different things that people who endorse… — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
Public order is a fragile thing, and if you don't fix the first broken window, soon all the windows will be broken. — James Q. Wilson Copy Share Image
