Another thing I think is very important in our country is justice. And I don’t think we’ve been pursuing justice the way we pursue money, for example, or the way we pursue health. For example, in health we have the National Institutes of Health where they study diseases and how to get rid of them. I think we ought to have a National Institute of Justice where we try to study what causes injustice, what causes people to do things that are wrong and then deal with them so that those causes of injustice will be eradicated like disease is eradicated.
For example, we know that certain places in the country produce a lot of injustice and crime. I think we ought to look at that as we do a disaster area where there’s been a flood or a health area where there’s epidemic. We ought to go in there with massive assistance and change both the social and economic and other situations in that area which would reduce crime. But that requires a Justice Department which is trying to increase the total amount of justice, not just a justice department that’s trying to enforce the laws the way they’re written.
I think of the Justice Department as being one of the most important things in government and grossly underfinanced. It ought to be much bigger and ought to have a concept of increasing justice like we try to increase health. Instead of that we have sort of a department of prosecution - you know, cops and robbers. We’ve got the 10 most wanted men - it’s a big success if we catch them. You know, it’s like that. Instead of that, I’d like it to be, you know, there’s injustice in this slum or there’s injustice about taxes or there’s injustice for consumers or there’s injustice for farmers, and let’s get out there and do something about it. We shouldn’t have to wait for Martin Luther King to have a walk before we have a Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department. We shouldn’t have to wait for Ralph Nader to start talking about consumers. The Justice Department should be doing that because it would be focused on the injustice in our society and try to develop ways to eradicate injustice, but that isn’t done.
