Justice & Law Quote by Robert Kennedy

Kennedy’s line lands like a moral boomerang: crime isn’t an alien invasion, it’s a civic mirror. The first sentence pricks the comforting myth that “criminals” are a separate species who can be contained with enough bars and bravado. By saying a society “deserves” its criminals, he’s not excusing harm; he’s indicting the conditions that reliably manufacture it - poverty, segregation, failed schools, political neglect. The provocation is deliberate. “Deserve” is the word that forces the listener to stop outsourcing responsibility.

Then he tightens the screw: communities also “insist on” their law enforcement. That’s the subtextual pivot from sympathy to accountability. If policing becomes brutal, corrupt, or unresponsive, Kennedy suggests it didn’t happen in a vacuum; it was enabled by public appetite for order at any cost, by elected officials who campaign on crackdowns, by voters who reward results over rights. The implication is uncomfortable: people who demand safety while tolerating dehumanization are co-authors of the institution they later fear.

Context matters. In the 1960s - amid rising crime anxieties, urban uprisings, and growing scrutiny of police violence - Kennedy was trying to reframe “law and order” away from mere force. The rhetoric is balanced on purpose: responsibility runs upward to systems and outward to citizens, not just downward to individuals. It’s a warning that public safety is a political choice, and that the methods a society authorizes will shape the society it becomes.