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" 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. "

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

" So complex are all the ingredients that cause gang membership that it seems virtually impossible to isolate one solution that can address them all and thereby manufacture a hope for the future upon which these kids can rely. "

" We are among the handful of countries that has difficulty distinguishing juveniles from adults where crime is concerned. We are convinced that if a child commits an adult crime, that kid is magically transformed into an adult. Consequently, we try juveniles as adults. "

" Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez - these are people whose thoughts are so important. "

" I think not everything that works helps, and not everything that helps works. "

" 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.' "

" Young people can change and grow. Every parent knows that. "

" Most employers just aren't willing to look beyond the dumbest or worst thing someone has done. "

" The poor evangelize you about what's important and what is the Gospel, and that that's where the joy is. "

" 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. "

" I wouldn't trade my life for anybody's. "

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

" Does God feel like that same-sex marriage could happen? I don't think anybody who has a connection to God and God's understanding and depth of compassion who's gonna say 'no.' "

" 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. "

" I know now that gang warfare is not the Middle East or Northern Ireland. There is violence in gang violence, but there is no conflict. It is not 'about something.' It is the language of the despondent and traumatized. "

" You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear. "

" I didn't take my vows to the LAPD. "

" The power of community policing is in the relationship. This can happen only if an officer sticks around for a while. "

" I always have a funny story at communion time that underscores that no one is perfect, and that communion is not for perfect people but for hungry people. "

" The business of second chances is everybody's business. "

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

" I'm the priest who has been mistaken for an ATM machine. "

" 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. "

" What is ultimately compelling for our children in helping them conjure images of a future for themselves is our willingness to walk with them as they do it. "

" Gang members aren't frightened into acceptable behavior by increased penalties, enhanced punishments, and the promise of new detention facilities. "

" In my barrio, jobs work and money saves lives. When I have had the funds to place a gang member on a job site and pay his salary, I've seen him stop banging. When, on the rarest of occasions, an employer has offered a job to one of these youth, I've witnessed kids suddenly have a reason to get up in the morning. "

" Showing up in the lives of children is everything. "

" I'm not opposed to success. "

" Like the suffering child, gang members act out of their despair, and their actions are all the more alarming now for our not having heeded their cry long ago. The shortsighted neglect that keeps us locked up in our outrage has also kept us from viable solutions. "

" People have to see that there is a high degree of complexity about belonging to a gang. It's a symptom, not a problem. "