Crack had a social logic to it, a specific kind of reasoning that drew from a vast well of common experience for its symbolic resonance. Crack stood for pain and power, chaos and order, the truth behind the lie. Crack was a sociolegal logic grounded in blood.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

Taking Mr. Durkin off the steets puts a Grand Canyon-sized hole in the local drug business.

The wrong decision in this case could be a fatal one.

Our entire lives we witness individuals, the ones who break some of the most culturally sensitive moral codes, ruined permanently by the media - i.e. shamed ruthlessly by the masses - i.e. dragged horribly by the village. While this is often intended to serve as a deterrent for the rest of us not to do anything too stupid, many of us choose to do stupid things anyway; and surely it is because the lot of us regard it simply as a challenge to bravery and a temptation to try to rise above or sneak past the law, to outsmart the justice system: I'm afraid the notion 'It'll never happen to me' is one of mankind's greatest hits.

I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.