As I have said on many occasions, the problem with the Crime Bill was not that it was passed, it was the unintended consequences that arose from it because of how it was implemented by states. At the time, people like me were coming up in unsafe neighborhoods.

We came up in neighborhoods during the crack/cocaine era & the gang violence era. Many were asking for help in our cities & neighborhoods. There are stories that many of us can tell about our experiences. There are things that I remember to this day. It still haunts me.

Stories like how I still remember being a kid & hearing a loud sound one day while we were all home & then learning the next day it was a person who had been pushed off the roof of a building next to ours 13 stories up after a drug deal gone bad. We lived on the 12th floor.

Stories how the park next to our building being dismantled because it had been a drug haven at night. Stories like how we used to look out our windows & could see them darting in between cars shooting at each other. Stories on which homes to avoid because they were drug homes.

You can't erase how we grew up. People can complain about the failures of the Crime Bill now because they are standing on the shoulders of those of us who lived through what they did not have to live through. Yes you can reform it but just don't erase our generation.

That's why we moved where we live now. My husband & I both came up in such neighborhoods, him in Dorchester, Mass & me in Queens, NY & we saw that we were living with our son in a similar neighborhood in Jersey City. Him being on lockdowns in school because of shootings outside.

My son & I hiding in the innermost part of our apartment because of shootings outside & then hearing from neighbors that it was drug related. We didn't want our son coming up like us. So remember that such neighborhoods still exist today & should be taken into account as well.