Author: Jim Cotterill

In any city, there is a small number of very high-risk individuals who are responsible for the majority of gun violence.” —David Mohammed David Mohammed is known for his work in reducing gun violence in Oakland California—a city consistently ranked in the top 10 most violent as far back as the 1980s. Oakland called their…Continue reading Quote of the Month: January 2022 →

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” —Victor Hugo French writer Victor Hugo wrote about the atrocities of prison in the early 1800s. His seminal work, Les Miserables, is a story of the horrific conditions in the prisons of his day and the life of a man who was never quite free from…Continue reading Quote of the Month: December 2021 →

Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will” —Anonymous Fear is the very basis of everything that holds us back from our true destiny. For a person who is reentering society after incarceration, it can be traumatic to even think about living on the outside. Inmates become “institutionalized,” by living in a system that makes…Continue reading Quote of the Month: November 2021 →

It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men” —Frederick Douglass Fredrick Douglass escaped slavery at the age of 16, maturing into a national leader of the abolitionist movement. Over the years, he became an international social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman, whose position on the value of intact families was wrought in…Continue reading Quote of the Month: October 2021 →

I love data, but data with the power to change lives is the best!” —Dr. Kathy Paulson-Gjerde, Professor of Economics, Butler University’s Lacy School of Business Historically, employers have not exactly jumped at the chance to hire those who have been incarcerated. It is true even now, in spite of the facts that we have…Continue reading Quote of the Month: August 2021 →

We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear.” —Nelson Mandela I met with Allison Luthe from Martin Luther King Community center a while ago. She told me that two of “her kids” had been killed in gun violence recently. In another shooting, Jordan Jackson a…Continue reading Quote of the Month: July 2021 →

Every form of refuge has its price” —The Eagles’ Don Henley and Glenn Frey Every so often there are lyrics that take on a meaning of their own. In 1975, The Eagles released “Lyin’ Eyes” which contained a sentence that jumped out of the music and into the thought process of a generation. You didn’t…Continue reading Quote of the Month: June 2021 →

Dying is easy, living is harder” —George Washington in Hamilton FULL DISCLOSURE: We have zero proof that the real President George Washington actually said those words, but his character in the Broadway show Hamilton definitely did. Either way, the statement is provocative. The world has changed since 1776. Maybe it’s the quickness of a handgun…Continue reading Quote of the Month: May 2021 →

Poverty is not just a lack of money, poverty is not having the capability to realize one’s full potential as a human being” —Amartya Sen Amartya Sen was born in India in 1933 and lived through an economic downturn that cost the lives of three million of India’s poor. This staggering loss of life led…Continue reading Quote of the Month: April 2021 →