HAPPY 2013: IN LOVING MEMORY OF J. EDGAR HOOVER [PRO DEATH PENALTY QUOTE OF THE WEEK ~ SUNDAY 30 DECEMBER 2012 TO SATURDAY 5 JANUARY 2013]

The late Director of the FBI, John Edgar Hoover was born on New Year’s Day on 1 January 1895. He would have been 118 years old today. In loving memory of him, I will post 4 quotes from him, which shows that law enforcement officials should think of murdered victims and their families.

QUOTE 1: Have you ever thought about how many criminals escape punishment, and yet, the victims never have a chance to do that? Are crime victims in the United States today the forgotten people of our time? Do they receive full measure of justice (as cited in Isenberg, 1977, p. 129)?

QUOTE 2: A criminal on death row has a chance to prepare his death, make a will, and make his last statements, etc. while some victims can never do it. There are many other crimes where people are injured by stabbing, rape, theft, etc. To some degree at least, the victims right to freedom and pursuit of happiness is violated.

QUOTE 3: When the assailant is apprehended and charged, he has the power of the judicial process who protects his constitutional rights. What about the victim? The assailant may have compassion from investigating officers, families and friends. Furthermore, the criminal may have organized campaigns of propaganda to build sympathy for him as if he is the one who has been sinned against. These false claims are publicized, for no reason, hence, protecting the criminal (Isenberg, I., 1977).

QUOTE 4: [Whoever did this] must be exterminated, and they must be exterminated by us. {On the perpetrators of the Kansas City Massacre of 1933, as quoted in Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough (2004: Penguin), p. 51}

AUTHOR: John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.