[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[June 22, 1996]
[Pages 954-955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
June 22, 1996

    Good morning. Today I want to talk with you about keeping our 
families safe and secure, and especially about how we can help parents 
to protect their children.
    Since I took office we've worked hard to combat the crime and 
violence that has become all too familiar to too many Americans. We 
passed a sweeping crime bill in 1994, against steep opposition from 
partisan politicians and special interest group pressure. We're now 
putting 100,000 new police officers on America's streets in community 
policing. Nearly half of them are already funded. We banned 19 deadly 
assault weapons, passed the Violence Against Women Act to help our 
communities resist domestic violence. We passed the Brady bill, and 
already it's stopped over 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers from 
buying a gun.
    We're helping our communities give children something to say yes to, 
positive programs and good role models to help them stay away from crime 
and drugs and gangs. These laws are making a real difference across our 
country. In city after city and town after town, crime and violence are 
finally coming down. Crime is coming down this year overall in America 
for the 4th year in a row. But we all know we've got a long way to go 
before our streets are safe again.
    And as we move forward, we have to remember we're not just fighting 
against crime, we're fighting for something: for peace of mind, for the 
freedom to walk around the block at night and feel safe, for the 
security of neighborhoods that aren't plagued by drugs, where you can 
leave your doors unlocked and not worry about your children playing in 
the yard. We're fighting to restore a sense of community, and most of 
all, we're fighting for our children and their future.
    Nothing is more important than keeping our children safe. We have 
taken decisive steps to help families protect their children, especially 
from sex offenders, people who, according to study after study, are 
likely to commit their crimes again and again. We've all read too many 
tragic stories about young people victimized by repeat offenders. That's 
why, in the crime bill, we required every State in the country to 
compile a registry of sex offenders and gave States the power to notify 
communities about child

[[Page 955]]

sex offenders and violent sex offenders that move into their 
neighborhoods.
    But that wasn't enough, and last month I signed Megan's Law that 
insists that States tell a community whenever a dangerous sexual 
predator enters its midst. Too many children and their families have 
paid a terrible price because parents didn't know about the dangers 
hidden in their own neighborhood. Megan's Law, named after a 7-year-old 
girl taken so wrongly at the beginning of her life, will help to prevent 
more of these terrible crimes.
    Now we must take the next step. Senator Biden and Senator Gramm have 
introduced bipartisan legislation to develop a national registry to 
track sexual offenders and child molesters across the country. They're 
on the right track, but we have to move forward now, and we can. Today 
I'm directing the Attorney General to report back in 60 days with a plan 
to guarantee our police officers this information right away. We must 
make sure police officers in every State can get the information they 
need from any State to track sex offenders down and bring them to 
justice when they commit new crimes. The police officer in Cleveland 
should be able to get information on all known sex offenders in 
Cleveland, whether they committed their crimes in New York or Los 
Angeles. Every bit of information we have about the people who commit 
these crimes should be available to law enforcement wherever and 
whenever they need it.
    The crime bill laid the foundation for this national registry by 
requiring States to track sexual offenders within their borders. Megan's 
Law makes sure parents get this information so they can take steps to 
watch out for their children. Now I want the Attorney General to work 
with the States and the Congress to link this information together to 
make it available to law enforcement at every level in every State. 
Police officers will be able to prevent more crimes and catch more 
criminals if they can share and compare the latest information we have.
    We respect people's rights, but there is no right greater than a 
parent's right to raise a child in safety and love. That's why the law 
should follow those who prey on America's children wherever they go, 
State to State, town to town.
    We'll never be able to eliminate crime completely. But as long as 
crime is so commonplace that we don't even look up when horror after 
horror leads the evening news, we know we've got a long way to go. Yes, 
the crime rate is coming down for 4 years in a row. And, yes, our 
strategies of 100,000 police, the Brady law, the assault weapons ban, 
the domestic violence law, the youth prevention programs, these things 
are helping. But I won't be satisfied until America is once again a 
place where people who see a report of a serious crime are shocked, not 
numb to it.
    We can make that America real. We know we can if we work together 
and put our children first.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 12:23 p.m. on June 21 at McCormick 
Place in Chicago, IL, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on June 22.