The most remarkable change in the moral history of mankind has been the rise - and occasionally the application - of the view that all people, and not just one's own kind, are entitled to fair treatment.
James Q. WilsonWhat most needs explanation is not why some people are criminals, but why most people are not.
James Q. WilsonSome people suggest that the problem is the separation of powers. If you had a parliamentary system, the struggle for power would not result in such complex peace treaties that empower so many different people to pursue so many contradictory aims
James Q. WilsonMany, if not most, of the difficulties we experience in dealing with government agencies arise from the agencies being part of a fragmented and open political systemโฆThe central feature of the American constitutional systemโthe separation of powersโexacerbates many of these problems. The governments of the US were not designed to be efficient or powerful, but to be tolerable and malleable. Those who designed these arrangements always assumed that the federal government would exercise few and limited powers.
James Q. WilsonMany Americans have lost confidence in the way our criminal courts assess guilt and innocence. Whatever one thinks of the verdicts, the recent trials of O.J. Simpson, Erik and Lyle Menendez, and various defendants in preschool molestation cases have been lengthy, lawyer-dominated soap operas in which the search for truth has been subordinated to the manipulation of procedures.
James Q. Wilson