[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[July 10, 1995]
[Page 1067]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Closing of Session I of the Family Re-Union IV Conference 
in Nashville
July 10, 1995

    I don't want to end on a downer, but I just want to ask you all to 
think about the implications of what we are discussing here. And I wish 
we had time for all the audience to ask their questions and make their 
comments, but let me just point this out.
    Almost every major city in America has had a decline in the crime 
rate in the last 3 or 4 years, but the rate of random violence among 
very young people is still going up, notwithstanding the decline in the 
crime rate. That is just one example. After years of making progress on 
reducing drug use, the rate of apparently random drug use across racial 
and income lines among quite young people is now going back up again. 
The rate of perceived risk or the pointlessness of not doing it seems to 
be going down.
    The ultimate answer may be in programs like the ``I Have A Future'' 
program and all these one-on-one programs for all these children. But I 
would ask you just to remember what one of our psychologists said, which 
is that most of our young people learn about violence or are affected by 
it between the ages of 2 and 8. Most of them learn--deal with sex and 
gender stereotypes between 8 and whenever.
    It may be that people between 8 and whenever are more subject to 
argument at least or counter information or the kind of publicity or you 
name it on these other issues we can put out. So let's focus at least on 
the violence. I see no alternative to solving this problem than to 
reduce the aggregate amount of violence to which these children are 
subject. And we're going to have to have some help from the media to get 
that done. I just don't see any alternative to that.
    The V-chip is something we ought to do, but if we're going to raise 
positive role models we also have to reduce the aggregate amount of 
violence. We must find a systematic way to do it. And in our country, 
with the first amendment and other things being the way they are, we're 
going to have to have some voluntary initiatives and some disciplined 
support from the media in America to get it done.

Note: The President spoke at 10:50 a.m. in Polk Theater at the Tennessee 
Performing Arts Center.