As a society we're always so quick and able to spend money on lawyers for someone for incarceration, but we don't make the corresponding commitment to the preventative components of it.

Running for office is important, and you don't really need more than to be right on the issues, and to be able to articulate what it is you believe. You don't need a certain background. You don't need to be a lawyer. You don't need to have some professional degree.

I think when judges are in the position of authority, they really get bent out of shape when someone tells them they acted inappropriately.

I represented many of these kids as they become young adults in the criminal justice system when I was a public defender. One way of reaching out is by the mind of experimentation.

I think that when we're talking about youth violence, we're talking about kids who don't have opportunities, so they're engaged in a certain degree of lawlessness, because we as a society have failed them.

I have voted to make tough decisions in budgetary times, I've served on two recessionary budgets, my opponent has never served on any a budget committee where there was less money to spend than the year before.

If you engage people honestly, and you're willing to do the leg work, people will respond to that.