Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I spent 27 years in law enforcement, and I realized early in my career that we cannot arrest our way out of the challenges that we face, that we have to address some of the social ills that cause decay in communities in the first place if we are going to make those communities better. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson commissioned a group to look at crime in America. I would like to share just a short paragraph of their report. It says: ``Every effort must be made to strengthen the family, now often shattered by the grinding pressures of urban slums. ``Slum schools must be given enough resources to make them as good as schools elsewhere and to enable them to compensate for the various handicaps suffered by the slum child--to rescue him from his environment.'' Mr. Speaker, I want you to know that we are still trying to rescue children that that particular child represents from their at-risk environments. If we are going to put America first, it starts with putting the American people first.”