[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 176 (Tuesday, September 13, 1994)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 47057-47058]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-22846]
[[Page Unknown]]
[Federal Register: September 13, 1994]
_______________________________________________________________________
Part VII
The President
_______________________________________________________________________
Proclamation 6717--
National Gang Violence Prevention Week, 1994
Presidential Documents
Federal Register
Vol. 59, No. 176
Tuesday, September 13, 1994
____________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
Proclamation 6717 of September 10, 1994
National Gang Violence Prevention Week, 1994
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Robert Sandifer was 8 years old the first time he was
arrested by police. He was 11 years old when he died, a
victim, police believe, of a gang-related killing. He
was also suspected of killing Shavon Dean, an innocent
victim of an earlier gang-related shooting. In Shavon
and Robert's hometown, the number of gang homicides has
nearly tripled since 1980. And in neighborhoods across
America, too many mothers and fathers have experienced
the anguish of losing a child to the meanness of the
streets. For them and for all of us, it is past time to
end the violence.
At younger and younger ages, boys and girls are turning
to gangs. For a child without an involved family, a
gang offers a feeling of belonging. For a young person
without options for tomorrow, a gang offers a sense of
purpose. For all those born in a home cordoned off
against danger, with bars on the windows and chains on
the doors, life on the streets seems all too often a
taste of freedom they have never known. But American
freedom is better than that. We know this. We see
freedom at work every day in the determined faces of
parents striving to make a better life for themselves
and their children. And we see it every day in big
cities and small towns across the country as Americans
come together to put the spirit of community to work.
Confronted with the horror of children planning their
own funerals, our Nation has begun planning for the
future. Our first, best hope is in the common cause of
those around us. A community that shares life's
experiences can be an important source of strength and
understanding in a world that seems filled with growing
violence and diminishing hope. Families and communities
are coming together across the country to bring hope to
even our most troubled youth. In Birmingham, Alabama,
where police officers are sponsoring athletic teams and
tutoring programs in 52 neighborhoods, youth crime has
dropped by 30 percent. In Los Angeles, teachers and
sheriffs are working in teams to show kids alternative
methods of resolving conflicts, encouraging them to
develop a sense of self-worth apart from gangs. The
1994 crime bill seeks to provide grassroots programs
like these the resources they need to push forward in
their efforts and to succeed in their fight.
In an invaluable victory for citizens across the
country, the Congress passed, and I will soon sign, a
crime bill that is designed to save the lives of
children like Shavon and Robert. This path-breaking
legislation will punish hardened young criminals by
requiring stronger penalties, and it will expand the
use of community boot camps, drug courts, and other
alternative sanctions to stop first-time offenders from
beginning a lifetime of crime. It bans 19 of the
deadliest assault weapons, and it goes a long way
toward keeping guns out of the hands of juveniles. With
strong measures of discipline and training, drug
treatment and education, this bill takes on the
sickness of gangs and drugs and gives our young people
a new chance at life. Ours is important work: It is
about trying to save a generation of children and to
secure the future life of a country. It is a job we can
surely do.
Ours remains the greatest Nation the world has ever
known because we have not shied away from challenges.
Rather, we have consistently sought to surmount them.
The problem of gang violence is among the most profound
we as a people have ever faced. We must respect our
young people enough to give them a positive choice for
the future. We must take responsibility for teaching
them to choose what is right. The solutions are within
our reach. The power to change America is within
ourselves. Together, we must work to redeem the promise
that every young life holds.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim the week of September 12
through September 16, 1994, as ``National Gang Violence
Prevention Week.'' I call upon the people of the United
States to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies
and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
tenth day of September, in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and nineteenth.
(Presidential Sig.)>
[FR Doc. 94-22846
Filed 9-12-94; 11:41 am]
Billing code 3195-01-P
Editorial note: For the President's remarks deploring
gang violence during his radio address, see issue 37 of
the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents.