I heard a true story from Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell a while ago that sticks with me to this day. He told a story to a group about a man who was in the county jail. This person was upset and being combative with staff. When Sheriff Asbell intervened to help calm him down, the man yelled, “I’m in here because of ya’ll!”

Curious of that statement, Sheriff Asbell went on to ask him why he would say it. The man stated that he was arrested on his charge (selling drugs), because of the system. He had to do whatever it took to pay off fines and support his family. He was never in trouble with the law until a fateful traffic stop. Sheriff Asbell decided to investigate further.

In looking at his criminal history, Sheriff Asbell could literally track the man’s downfall. He saw the decline in his life that started with that traffic stop. The stop led to fines, fines led to poverty, his poverty led to his family breaking up, this led to drinking and a DUI arrest, which led to more fines, which led to drug sales, then incarceration. Sheriff Asbell found that the officer who gave him his first tickets was none other than himself. This was monumental to hear an officer speak this candidly on the gravity of police work and its consequences. Never excusing the man’s role in the traffic stop, Sheriff Asbell owned his role on the enforcement side of the law. This is just a small glimpse of a larger issue.

All over the U.S., laws are enforced with the power to shatter lives, families and communities. With policing happening with greater presence in lower income, majority Black communities, this is a critical issue that must be visited. Coupled with the implicit and complicit biases within law enforcement, there is a toxic mix to specific communities. When we wonder why some areas aren’t booming with home ownership and thriving families, but are being overwhelmed by blight and despair, etc., the enforcement of the law in these communities must be reviewed as a contributing factor.

People need not be defined only by their mistakes. They need to have the opportunities and resources to overcome them.

When we look at the example above, we can see the systemic progression of the effect of law enforcement. How a simple traffic stop can affect the trajectory of one’s life. Not only was that life affected, but the family dynamic as well. In my 18 years in uniform, I have seen the horror stories. Starting off in an OK situation, receiving fines, not being able to pay those fines, an arrest, loss of driving privileges, struggle to sustain employment, driving illegally to keep employment, getting caught, more fines and incarceration, etc. It is a perpetual cycle of hopelessness.

From the financial bleeding of already poor families, the breaking of these families through the financial strife and incarceration (absence) of one of their important pieces, being denied the ability to rent a satisfactory home due to that arrest or attaining good enough credit to own your own ­— all while battling the stigma of it all — people can be systemically kept as lower-class citizens. When multiplied in specific neighborhoods, lids can be put on the advancement of whole communities.

Any chance I have to address new officers on the gravity of their arrests in their career, I take it. People who have been affected so adversely by these policies need to be brought to police training sessions to share their life experiences. Every officer in uniform needs to be immersed in what can happen to lives when they enforce the law with a broad stroke.

In this education, I hope it modifies the heavy handedness in which some minor infractions are levied by officers with discretion in these matters. Just because I pull you over for a taillight, I don’t have to hit you with that window obstruction, the loud music ticket, the yelling/shouting ticket because you’re upset, etc. I can have empathy in the situation. If I’m not too busy, I can tail you to an AutoZone, purchase a taillight and install it. The impact of that gesture would do more for a community than the crimininal enforcement of any law.

And the community would be all the better for it.

Demario Boone is Director of Peoria Public Schools Safety.