    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [June 9, 1996]
    [Pages 876-881]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Juvenile Crime in Las Vegas,
    Nevada
    June 9, 1996

        The President. Thank you very much.

    [At this point, moderator Kirby Burgess, director, Clark County Youth
    and Family Services Center, welcomed the President and introduced
    roundtable participants. Gov. Bob Miller of Nevada then reviewed steps
    taken in the State to deal with juvenile crime, and Clark County
    Undersheriff Richard Wingett described the juvenile violent crime
    problem in Las Vegas. Mr. Burgess introduced Shane Quick, Anthony
    Covarrubias, and Stanley Johnson, teenagers enrolled in alternative
    sentencing programs. Mr. Quick described his experience in a residential
    drug treatment program and concluded by saying that he was nervous.]

    [[Page 877]]

        The President. You're doing great. You're doing great.
        Mr. Burgess. He's an honest young man, Mr. President.

    [Mr. Covarrubias described his rehabilitation through the Freedom
    Program, an intensive supervision program.]

        The President. How does it work, this Freedom Program?

    [Mr. Covarrubias said he was under house arrest and had to check in with
    the program twice a day, but could earn privileges for good behavior.]

        The President. Why do you think it's helped you?
        Mr. Covarrubias. Because now I'm going to counseling. I'm getting
    along with my parents. It's keeping me out of trouble, keeping me off
    the streets.
        The President. Is that your mother out there?
        Mr. Covarrubias. Yes.
        The President. Give her a hand, and your family there. [Applause]
        Mr. Burgess. Tony, what I'd like for you guys to do is speak up
    because the press is here and all the audience is here and these
    microphones are a little----
        The President. What's the difference in the program Tony's in and
    the one Shane's in? Shane, what's your program called?

    [Mr. Quick said that he had completed the West Care residential
    treatment and was required to report to a probation officer once a
    week.]

        The President. Mr. Wingett, do you know how many--do either of you
    know, maybe Kirby knows it--how many young people does your probation
    officer work with? Do you know? Do you know how many people?
        Mr. Burgess. Yes, sir, I do, Mr. President.
        The President. How many?

    [Mr. Burgess said the average caseload for community supervision was 60
    to 80 children.]

        The President. So you check in once a week. And you check in twice a
    day. You have to do random drug tests?
        Mr. Quick. No. I did; I did do random drug tests.
        The President. For how long?
        Mr. Quick. Three months.
        The President. Okay.

    [Mr. Burgess asked Mr. Covarrubias how he would behave differently when
    he returned to his neighborhood. Mr. Covarrubias responded that he would
    not hang around with his friends as much and would walk away from them
    if they asked him to commit crimes.]

        Mr. Burgess. Mr. President, Stanley Johnson, who is to your left, is
    13 years old--[laughter]--he is involved----
        The President. You did pretty good today.

    [Mr. Burgess described the New Directions program of 24-hour supervision
    in which Mr. Johnson was enrolled. Mr. Johnson explained that his
    probation officer, Mr. Garcia, helped him improve his grades. Mr.
    Burgess then asked the teen to describe how his mother was involved in
    the program.]

        Mr. Johnson. What?
        The President. About your mother.

    [Mr. Burgess invited parent Joy Gladwin to comment, and she described
    the New Directions parent support group in which she participated
    because her son was enrolled in the program.]

        The President. Do you work with Stan?
        Ms. Gladwin. No, I'm just a friend.
        The President. And how did you find this program? How did you get
    involved with it?

    [Ms. Gladwin explained her son's enrollment in the program.]

        The President. Stan, do you like doing this program every day? Do
    you think these folks are helping you?
        Mr. Johnson. Yes.
        The President. Do you think it's going to help you stay in school?
        Mr. Johnson. Yes.
        The President. Do you have a feeling--do you think they really care
    about you?
        Mr. Johnson. Mm-hmm. [Laughter]
        Ms. Gladwin. Mr. Garcia does care very, very much for all of these
    kids.
        The President. Is Mr. Garcia here?
        Ms. Gladwin. Yeah, he is.
        The President. Where is he? Stand up there, Mr. Garcia. [Applause]
        Ms. Gladwin. He's really been a large benefit to these kids. He
    knows when to push them and when not to, and it helps tremendously.

    [Mr. Burgess noted that many of the children were from single-parent
    homes, and Ms.

    [[Page 878]]

    Gladwin described the importance of the program to her family.]

        The President. How much of the problems that young people have--I
    mean that they're so much greater today than they have been in previous
    generations. How much of it do you think is due to the fact that
    children are alone so much more than they used to be?
        Ms. Gladwin. A lot. Unfortunately, there's a lot more single
    parents. And it's very difficult for us.
        Governor Miller. We have the highest percentage of single mothers in
    the United States here in Nevada, Mr. President.
        The President. You know, a phenomenal percentage of single parents
    are spending more than 20 percent of their income on child care when
    their children are very young. And then when they don't need literal,
    physical child care anymore it becomes almost impossible for them to do
    anything. That's one of the reasons that these programs are so
    important.
        Ms. Gladwin. Yes, they are. The question I have to ask is why isn't
    there more programs like the New Directions?
        The President. Well, maybe I can talk a little about that.
        First, let me say what the good news is. The bad news is that the
    country has figured out how to reduce the crime rate, but the crime rate
    among children under 18 is still going up. For 3 years in the country as
    a whole the crime rate has gone down now, and that's good, but juvenile
    crime still continues to rise. Now, there are, however, some things that
    seem to be working. Every one of them seems to be related to giving
    young people an organized, positive way to spend their time.
        And I could give you just a lot of examples. We've worked hard, for
    example, to help communities that wanted to set up a curfew set up
    curfews. But the ones--the curfew programs that really work are ones
    where the kids also have something to do. I was in New Orleans last
    week, and they've got a curfew center there so that if a young person
    violates the curfew, they don't put them in jail, fine them, or just
    drop them back off at home and let them go out and get in trouble again.
    They take them to the curfew center, and they try to come up with a plan
    to help the kids with their lives.
        Long Beach, California, has a school uniform policy because they had
    such a gang problem there. And the kids designed their own uniform,
    school by school. But it's reduced violence and other kinds of problems
    there.
        There are different ways that are dealing with this. A lot of
    schools are trying to stay open later, and a lot of places are trying to
    develop programs like you've got here, where you try to get parents as
    well as the young people involved in community restitution and
    rehabilitation efforts.
        But the main thing I want to say, to get back to answering your
    question, is our country has got to make a commitment to understand that
    normally when we see a serious crime, that's the end of years of
    difficulties that a lot of people have, and that we simply cannot jail
    our way out of America's crime problem. We are going to have to invest
    some more money in prevention. And I say that as somebody who started
    out in law enforcement as attorney general over 20 years ago--almost 20
    years ago. And when I was Governor, I built a lot of prison cells, and I
    passed a lot of laws toughening penalties, and you know, we had a very
    tough approach. But these young people--somebody has got to do something
    to give them a chance to live an organized, positive life.
        And when we wrote the crime bill--it's very interesting. We passed
    the crime bill in 1994. I'm proud of the fact that it's putting 100,000
    more police officers on the street. But I said then and I say again, I'm
    sure you would corroborate this, a lot of these police officers--and a
    lot of the good they're doing is they're stopping crime from happening
    in the first place, not just catching criminals more quickly. And we
    have--all I can tell you is we need to build more support nationally and
    in every State legislature in the country and every local government in
    the country for these kind of programs, because the social and economic
    realities in which a lot of these young folks are growing up in put them
    under a lot of pressure that people our age didn't face when we were
    their age. It's just a plain truth. And we have to find an organized,
    disciplined, caring environment that we--we need to help their parents
    and support them. There's so many--so many single parents out there
    doing the best they can.
        And I was sitting there--I was looking at Shane and Tony and Stan
    and thinking, you know, one way or the other these three kids are our
    future. They're our future, and we've

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    got to take responsibility at least to give them the best chance they
    can to make a good future for themselves and for the rest of us. And I
    want to thank you, Kirby, for spending your life on this.
        Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. President.
        The President. Thank you for doing it.
        Another point. I just want to make one more point and then I'd like
    to go back and let anybody else talk who wants to talk. For it is
    amazing to me how much some of these community programs can do on a
    modest budget. We're not talking about spending a fortune here. A lot of
    these community-based programs are so much less expensive than a lot of
    the more expensive things that happen later on.
        If the program Shane was in works and he never develops a serious
    drug habit, then it's a lot less expensive than treating somebody for a
    serious drug problem later on. That's just one example, you know.
    Whatever it costs for Tony to have somebody to check in twice a day
    with, gives him a chance to graduate from high school, maybe go on to
    college, get a good job, have a good, successful life. Whatever it costs
    will be a pittance of what we would all pay if his life took a different
    turn.
        And the same thing is true for every young person. So I want to say
    that I was so impressed when I read about these programs, and I have
    been almost obsessed with this juvenile crime problem, not only because
    it makes our people feel less safe but because of what's happening to
    all these kids we're losing.
        And I just also want to say one other thing, to urge you to support
    the Governor, and you've got your county commissioner and the mayor
    here; the two Senators are here. Just now coming into our schools there
    is another baby boom generation. A lot of people don't know this and
    haven't focused on this yet. I'm the oldest of the children born right
    after World War II, and we're the biggest--the people of my age and
    down, about 15 or 16 years younger than me, are the biggest group of
    Americans ever born into this country. There is now a group, just now
    starting into grade school, that when they get in their school years
    will be slightly bigger than we are as a generation. And if we don't
    turn this juvenile crime problem around by the time they're 13 to 16,
    you cannot imagine what we're going to be grappling with.
        These young people are actually in a group of Americans that aren't
    particularly numerous. Their parents were of a generation where people
    had relatively fewer children, and there weren't so many people in their
    child-bearing years. I don't want to use this--this will sound wrong,
    but these kids have, in a way, by going through this, have given us a
    chance to figure out for future generations how to rescue young people
    and support mothers like Joy. And we better take advantage of them and
    we better do it now, because if we wait another 5 or 6 years, the
    dimensions of the problem will be roughly 2 to 3 times greater than they
    are now. And it will be unmanageable.
        So I still--my own view is the right thing for the National
    Government to do is to provide the resources and the legal and other
    support necessary to let communities pick those programs that are most
    likely to work best for them, because not every program works the same
    in every place. And the truth is that every one of these programs,
    you've got to have some caring adult and some system that works,
    somebody who can stand up like this gentleman down here and get a round
    of applause because the kids relate to him or her, as the case may be.
        So I don't think that we should be prescribing what works. What we
    have tried to do in our administration is go around and find things that
    are working, and if people are having some trouble spreading it, like
    the uniform policy, the curfews, or whatever, we try to help them do
    that. And otherwise, we try to provide what money we could pass in the
    Congress to let the communities decide what works best. And that's what
    I think we should do.
        Senator Harry Reid. Mr. President.
        The President. Senator Reid.

    [Senator Reid said the President's leadership had protected Federal
    programs such as the drug-free schools and school-to-work efforts.]

        The President. Well, to be explicit, when we fought the crime bill
    in 1994, there were people who basically said all Washington should do
    is pass penalties and build prisons; that we shouldn't put the police
    out there, we shouldn't ban assault weapons, we shouldn't have a waiting
    period for handguns, and that it was a waste of money to give funds to
    communities for these prevention programs. You remember the debate very
    well.
        And the most important thing I want to focus on today, I mean, I
    think the evidence is clear now on what we did on the others, that we

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    were right. But the most important thing is we didn't win the whole
    fight on the prevention programs, as you know, although both of you
    tried to help me. But when you see programs like this, you just have to
    say that every one of these--every young person in the country--every
    person like Stanley Johnson in the country ought to be in one of these
    programs who needs it. And until that happens, it shouldn't be a--that
    ought to be a test.
        But maybe we'll turn it around now, thanks to all of you.

    [Mr. Burgess asked the teens for suggestions on improving prevention
    services. Mr. Quick suggested social events for teens where speakers
    would talk about the dangers of drugs and gangs.]

        Mr. Burgess. Any final comments, Mr. President?
        The President. Well, let's see if anybody--Tony?
        Mr. Covarrubias. No, I don't.
        The President. Stanley? [Laughter]
        You're doing great. Let me ask you something. I want to ask you guys
    something--just one thing. If we weren't here in this big crowd of
    people, if we were just sitting alone in a room so you didn't have to
    worry about being on television and wearing a tie and suit--don't be
    nervous; you look good in it--[laughter]--and you were trying to tell me
    what one thing or two things you think I could do or that we could do
    that would make it possible for more young people to make it, either to
    stay out of trouble or to get out of trouble if they get in, what do you
    think we could do to change the way things are in America that would
    make you feel better about it, that would make you feel better about
    your future? Is there any one thing you could tell me that you think
    that we ought to be working on, that would make the biggest difference
    to the largest number of young people your age?

    [Mr. Quick said that while help was important, the individual had to be
    willing to change.]

        The President. So that's why you made the other suggestion you did,
    that at least if you got all the kids together, they would know what was
    there for them if they were inclined to ask for help.
        What about you, Tony?
        Mr. Covarrubias. I can't really think of nothing.
        The President. You think the program has been a good thing for you?
        Mr. Covarrubias. Yeah.
        The President. Are there a lot of young people your age that need
    programs like this and aren't in them that you know of?
        Mr. Covarrubias. Not that I can think of right now, but yeah.
        The President. You think there are or there aren't? You think you're
    reaching most of the people?
        What about you?
        You have done well. Let's give the young men a hand. Let's give them
    a hand. They have done well. [Applause]

    [Mr. Burgess thanked the President for his participation and invited him
    to visit again.]

        The President. Thank you. I would like to, before I go, I would like
    to just very briefly thank Dr. Harter and the staff here at UNLV for
    letting us all come on a difficult day. And I want to thank Senator Reid
    and Senator Bryan for their support for these programs in Washington.
    And I want to thank all the folks here on the panel and the Governor and
    Mr. Wingett and especially you, Kirby.
        But ladies and gentlemen, let me say again to you, I thank you for
    coming out today. If you look at these--when we leave here now, you look
    at these three boys sitting up here with me and remember what I told
    you. If I had told you 3\1/2\ years ago when I was inaugurated President
    that we would have 3 years of declining crime but that the crime rate
    among juveniles would go up, you would have a hard time believing that.
    We cannot let that be true 5 or 10 years from now. It will consume this
    country. It will change the whole way we live.
        So if you really like what you have seen today, and you liked seeing
    these young folks up here sitting with the President, instead of being
    in trouble, and being nervous and doing the best they can to do
    something good--if you like that, then you need to support these
    programs, and you need to make sure every child in this State that needs
    it is in one. And you need to support these people that are doing it,
    because they are proof that we can turn this around, but we haven't
    gotten to everybody or the numbers wouldn't be what they are. And we
    have to do it.

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        This is a very urgent problem for our country, and we can only
    change it in two ways. One is, like Shane said, when people decide they
    are going to make a difference in their own lives, and secondly, when
    adults like you take responsibility in every community. We will keep
    trying to do our part, but remember, we need you. And if you liked this
    today, when you go out of here, make sure you're going to do something
    to turn this situation around.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:05 a.m. in the student union ballroom at
    the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. In his remarks, he referred to
    Yvonne Atkinson-Gates, chairwoman, Clark County Commission; Mayor Jan
    Laverty Jones of Las Vegas, NV; and Carol Harter, president, University
    of Nevada at Las Vegas.