Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Children find themselves adrift not because the informational signposts are illegible, but because there is no one around to guide and accompany them. "

Related Quotes:

" God is compassion. "

" As much as I dislike the suggestion of single solutions to complex problems, jobs are as close as we will get to a single, effective answer to the enormous problem of gangs. "

" The highest religious and spiritual ideals of any faith would invite us to a compassion for all lives destroyed by the violence that plagues us. "

" Homeboy Bakery is an alternative to kids who have found themselves, regrettably, in gangs and want to redirect their lives. "

" Metro police can't infuse hope into those for whom hope is foreign. The algorithm does not exist that can heal the traumatized. Data-driven predictions won't result in the delivery of mental health services. "

" I love movies. "

" At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light. "

" The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.' "

" I have a lot of people in my life, and I think there's something key: the thing that leads to intimacy and relationship and connection is tenderness. "

" People have started to see that 'smart on crime' rather than 'tough on crime' makes sense. "

" I do believe in lessons learned. I have learned that you work with gang members and not with gangs; otherwise, you enforce the cohesion of gangs and supply them oxygen. "

" If the Los Angeles Police Department had enough officers, it could focus on one part of the community and stay there long enough to know and respect the people the officers are called on to protect and serve. "

" It has become an accepted tenet that kids will rarely listen to their parents but seldom fail to imitate them. Communicating the message has never been a good substitute for 'showing up' and embodying the message. "

" Jesus did not only serve the needs of the people, but truly hoped that the people and Jesus would be one. "

" In Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world, we have 1,100 gangs and 120,000 gang members so it is a daunting, complex social dilemma. "

" Delegations from all over the world visit Homeboy Industries and scratch their heads as we tell them of our difficulty in placing our people in jobs after their time with us. Americans' seeming refusal to believe in a person's ability to redeem himself strikes these folks as foreign indeed. "

" I think that any program that's born from below rather than on high is going to survive. "

" Redemption is possible, and it is the measure of a civilized society. "

" The Church should say, 'I'm frightened that women will be ordained;' that's honest, say that. But don't say, 'It's a grave sin,' because that's nonsense. "

" Most citizens viewing the tape of Rodney G. King being beaten by police officers were stunned and uncomprehending. Most citizens, that is, but the urban poor. "

Police Officers

" We need not wait for further, well-placed home video cameras to see that low-intensity warfare is being waged against low-income minorities. We need only listen to the voices of the poor; they can testify that they are dehumanized, disparaged, and despised by the police. "

" I spent the summers of 1984 and 1985 as an associate pastor at Dolores Mission Church, the poorest parish in the Los Angeles archdiocese. In 1986, I became pastor of the church. "

" As a society, we come up lacking in many of the marks of compassion and wisdom by which we measure ourselves as civilized. "

" We lose our right to be surprised that California has the highest recidivism rate in the country if we refuse to hire folks who have taken responsibility for their crimes and have done their time. "

" Gangs are born of a lethal absence of hope, and hope has an address: 130 W. Bruno St. in Los Angeles, CA 90012. "

" When the vastness of God meets the restriction of our own humanity, words can't hold it. The best we can do is find the moments that rhyme with this expansive heart of God. "

" The highest hallmark of a civilized society is not the rapidity by which it exacts vengeance, but its ability to hold victim and victimizer in its compassionate heart. "

" What do we know to be true about gang violence? We know we will fail if we fixate on the symptoms and not address what undergirds it. "

" Richard Rohr is a theologian that I read. "

" Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one. "