I find that people want aggressive policing if they as a community feel they are part of it. They don't want aggressive policing if they feel it's being imposed upon them and they are a target.
Loretta LynchRead
The power to arrest - to deprive a citizen of liberty - must be used fairly, responsibly, and without bias.
Interpretation
Authority must apply law fairly and without prejudice.
Loretta Lynch emphasizes the critical importance of fairness and responsibility in the exercise of power, particularly in law enforcement. The quote highlights that the ability to restrict an individual's freedom should not be misused or influenced by personal biases, underscoring the need for integrity in those who hold such power in society.
In practice
During a speech on law enforcement reforms, one might reference this quote to emphasize the need for unbiased policing.
I find that people want aggressive policing if they as a community feel they are part of it. They don't want aggressive policing if they feel it's being imposed upon them and they are a target.
What we must not do - what we must never do - is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human.
Almost one in three Americans has had some contact with the criminal justice system. When you reach that saturation point, people begin to understand, in a very visceral way, the difficulties of reentry.
Often, we do not know where our choices will take us. This is why the best choices are often made based not on what they can bring to us, but what they will allow us to bring to others.
What I have realized is I cannot guarantee the absence of discrimination or hatred or prejudice, but I can guarantee the presence of justice.
Whether it is tribalism, racism, xenophobia, or anti-Muslim backlash we're talking about, we spend so much time and energy fighting ways to divide ourselves from others.
The fact that our legal system has become so tolerant of police lying indicates how corrupted our criminal justice system has become by declarations of war, 'get tough' mantras, and a seemingly insatiable appetite for locking up and locking out the poorest and darkest among us.
In countries with a properly functioning legal system, the mob continues to exist, but it is rarely called upon to mete out capital punishment. The right to take human life belongs to the state. Not so in societies where weak courts and poor law enforcement are combined with intractable structural injustices.
Of course laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.
The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
Justice remains the greatest power on earth. To that tremendous power alone will we submit.
Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.
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