Greg Boyle

"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."

"Kids are different from adults. They are not as developed as far as brain science, controlling impulses, and maturity, and fall prey to all kinds of pressures."

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

"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."

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

"We need a pope to usher in a new era of inclusion, the end of a sinful clericalism, and a strong sense of duty to those on society's margins. The 1 billion faithful long for a leader who is fearless and driven - not by terror but by love."

"You prevent kids from joining gangs by offering after-school programs, sports, mentoring, and positive engagement with adults. You intervene with gang members by offering alternatives and employment to help redirect their lives. You deal with areas of high gang crime activity with real community policing. We know what works."

"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."