Businesses have come and gone at Homeboy Industries. We have had starts and stops, but anything worth doing is worth failing at. We started Homeboy Plumbing. That didn't go so well. Who knew? People didn't want gang members in their homes. I just didn't see that coming.

I know now that gang warfare is not the Middle East or Northern Ireland. There is violence in gang violence, but there is no conflict. It is not 'about something.' It is the language of the despondent and traumatized.

My job isn't to fix or rescue or to save. It's to accompany, see people, listen to them.

We are among the handful of countries that has difficulty distinguishing juveniles from adults where crime is concerned. We are convinced that if a child commits an adult crime, that kid is magically transformed into an adult. Consequently, we try juveniles as adults.

I've given it my all. I've done my best. Now, I'm ready with my family to begin the next phase of our lives.

A princely mind will undo a private family.

It's really all about family, love and the children for me. I work at that every day.

I used to watch 'The Waltons' and sob because my family was nothing like that. We had a cruel sense of humor in my family.