Lack of lawful access certainly affects our ability to do our jobs, but we know where the harm really falls when evidence is kept unavailable - it falls on innocent people, the people we're sworn to protect.
Interpretation
The unavailability of evidence due to lack of access hampers law enforcement's work, ultimately harming innocent individuals.
Christopher A. Wray emphasizes the importance of lawful access to evidence for law enforcement agencies. When they cannot access crucial information, their ability to protect and serve the community is severely compromised, leading to detrimental effects, particularly on innocent individuals who may be victims of crime or injustice. The quote highlights the ethical responsibility of law enforcement to ensure that their actions do not inadvertently harm those they are meant to safeguard.
In practice
During a town hall meeting about community safety, the quote could be used to highlight the importance of supporting law enforcement access to evidence.
When law enforcement fails to fulfill its most basic duty to protect and serve its citizens, particularly members of a minority community, it not only tarnishes the badge we all wear, but erodes the trust that we in law enforcement have worked so hard to build.
Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.
We sought justice because equal pay for equal work is an American value. That fight took me ten years. It took me all the way to the Supreme Court. And, in a 5 - 4 decision, they stood on the side of those who shortchanged my pay, my overtime, and my retirement just because I am a woman.
If you're not thinking about the way systemic bias can be propagated through the criminal justice system or predictive policing, then it's very likely that, if you're designing a system based on historical data, you're going to be perpetuating those biases.
If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of mass incarceration is just too big, too daunting for us to do anything about and that we should instead direct our energies to battles that might be more easily won, history will judge us harshly. A human rights nightmare is occurring on our watch.
We are confident. We have ourselves. We know how to sacrifice. We know how to work. We know how to combat the forces that oppose us. But even more than that, we are true believers in the whole idea of justice. Justice is so much on our side, that that is going to see us through.
Charity is no substitute for justice. If we never challenge a social order that allows some to accumulate wealth--even if they decide to help the less fortunate--while others are short-changed, then even acts of kindness end up supporting unjust arrangements. We must never ignore the injustices that make charity necessary, or the inequalities that make it possible.
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