    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 11, 1997]
    [Pages 717-720]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Juvenile Justice Conference
    June 11, 1997

        Thank you very much, Attorney General Reno, Ray Kelly, Father
    O'Donovan. Let me say to my good friend Father O'Donovan, I never know
    when I come to Georgetown whether being introduced as the university's
    most well-known alumnus will be a liability or an asset. It just depends
    on what month I come, I think. When Ray Kelly said he considered the
    Jesuits the Marine Corps of the Catholic Church, I never really thought
    of that. And then he went through that litany, you know, ``the few, the
    proud'' and all that, I was thinking about the ones who taught me in
    class. I was thinking, ``the few, the proud, the brutal.'' [Laughter]
    But brilliantly brutal.
        I love this place, and I thank Father O'Donovan for having us here
    at the conference. I also want to thank the Attorney General and Ray
    Kelly for the truly unprecedented partnership that they have established
    with local law enforcement officials and others who are interested in
    the safety of our streets and our children throughout the United States.
    We have here representatives of the Fraternal Order of Police, of the
    Major Cities Chiefs Association, the law enforcement community, a lot of
    other people who just work with young people and try to help give them
    something to say yes to.
        I'm glad to see our friend Jim Brady here. The country owes a lot of
    thanks to Jim and to Sarah, for with courage and persistence and good
    humor, they have saved a lot of lives with the Brady bill, the assault
    weapons ban, and others.
        We are here today to talk about what we can do together to build
    safer neighborhoods and stronger neighborhoods as part of the
    preparation of America for a new century. Today I want to talk about
    violent youth gangs and

    [[Page 718]]

    the illegal guns they use, the biggest problem, perhaps, we still face
    in that ongoing struggle.
        But as Ray Kelly said, this is a good time to be involved in law
    enforcement because the good guys are winning and the tide of crime is
    being rolled back. Four and a half years ago, I can honestly say, when I
    went around the country in 1992 seeking the Presidency and began to talk
    about the importance of more police and effective prevention programs
    along with tougher punishment--and actually I said I was confident that
    we could bring the crime rate way down over a sustained period of time--
    most people did not believe me.
        You might be interested to know that every national survey I've seen
    says that most people still don't believe it. [Laughter] Even though
    those of you who are involved in this endeavor know that crime is now
    down for several years in a row and we had the largest drop in 35 years
    last year, most people still don't believe it. It may be because a crime
    story still leads the evening news. It may be the accumulation of
    personal experiences; nearly everybody has someone in their family who
    has been victimized. It may be an instinctive feeling that whether the
    crime rate has gone down or not, it's still too high and there are still
    too many of our children at risk.
        But nonetheless, it has gone down. And a lot of you in this room
    have helped to make it so. And we tried to work with you and also to
    learn from you what actually works, not what sounds good in a television
    ad, not what sounds good in a political campaign, but what actually
    works: putting more police on the street, taking gangs and guns off the
    streets, having proven, effective prevention programs that keep our
    children out of trouble and prevent crimes from occurring in the first
    place.
        That's what we tried to do with the crime bill and the Brady bill,
    with the assault weapons ban, with the violence against women act, and
    the other things that the Attorney General spoke about. It's what we've
    tried to do with our strongest effort ever to make our schools drug-free
    and gun-free, to have zero tolerance for guns in schools, to make it
    illegal for minors to possess handguns and for adults to transfer
    handguns to minors. It's what General McCaffrey is working so hard on in
    his position as our Nation's drug czar.
        And thanks to all of you, the strategy is working. Even the juvenile
    crime rate showed some decline in 1995, and the juvenile crime arrest
    rate has begun to go down as a result of your unceasing efforts. But we
    know that juvenile violence is still a huge problem. We know violent
    youth gangs still terrorize our streets. We know innocent children are
    still being swept up in them and may soon be innocent no longer.
        According to a report released by the Justice Department, unless we
    act and do more now, the number of juveniles arrested for violent crimes
    will more than double by the year 2010. We have got to show the same
    progress with young people, with juvenile crime, with violence, that we
    have seen in the overall crime rate with adults in the last 5 years.
    Keep in mind, this year when school started, we had the largest class of
    children starting school and the largest number of people in school in
    the history of America. This year is the first year that the number of
    schoolchildren exceeded the high watermark of the baby boom, which means
    that demographically we have just a few years to deal with our young
    people and give them a future and something to say yes to and to deal
    with this gang and drug and gun problem before the sheer change in
    population will begin to overwhelm our efforts.
        So I think we know enough and a lot of you have shown us enough to
    be just as optimistic about this as we now can be about the general
    problem of crime. But we also have seen enough and we know enough to
    know that we have to move and move now.
        In February, I sent juvenile justice legislation that I felt was
    very smart and very tough to Congress to declare war on gangs and guns
    but to do things that you say and that you have shown will work. It was
    largely modeled on Boston's famous Operation Cease-Fire. It guarantees
    new antigang prosecutors that are desperately needed to pursue and
    prosecute violent juveniles. It gives prosecutors the right to seek
    tougher penalties. It supports initiatives like Operation Night Light in
    Boston, where police and probation officers actually make housecalls to
    young probationers and their families to make sure that they live up to
    the rules of their probation. And when I was in Boston, not very long
    ago--we spent over a half a day there--the people said that their
    compliance rate was around 70 percent, which I'm quite confident is the
    highest in the country. But these things will work.

    [[Page 719]]

        Because about 40 percent of juvenile crime occurs after school
    closes and before parents come home--so much for the argument that
    parents don't make any difference--the youth violence strategy we
    presented would help to launch 1,000 after-school initiatives all over
    the country, again, modeled on what is working today--not rocket
    science, just following the leader to save lives.
        We know now that children should be allowed to stay in school or
    involved in other activities rather than left on street corners until
    their parents come home from work. We know now that it would be better
    if our children had teachers or community leaders or team leaders as
    role models, not gang leaders. We know that our children should be
    supervised by caring adults, not young people who have entered a gang
    culture.
        The bill that I presented dealt with all this. It also is just as
    tough on guns as on gangs. I don't care what anybody says--guns are
    still at the heart of the gangs that strike at the hearts of our
    communities and families. Every year thousands of children and young
    people are killed by them, even more wounded and maimed. Listen to this:
    Teenage homicides by firearms tripled in the 10 years between 1984 and
    1994, and the number of juveniles actually killing with guns quadrupled
    during the same period.
        When the National Center for Health Statistics tells us that teenage
    boys are more likely to die from gunshot wounds than from any other
    cause, we know that we have more than a duty, we have a moral obligation
    to keep fighting against this terrible scourge of gun violence, to build
    on the pathbreaking work done by Jim Brady and others, and to go beyond
    what we have done so far.
        That's why the juvenile crime bill I presented to Congress extends
    the Brady bill to prevent juvenile criminals from purchasing guns when
    they reach legal age. You shouldn't be able to commit a violent crime at
    16 or 17, then buy a handgun for your 21st birthday. This bill would
    make that illegal, and I hope all of you will help us pass it.
        The bill also requires that child safety locks be sold with guns to
    keep children from hurting themselves or each other. Unbelievably, a
    third of all privately owned handguns in our country are left both
    unlocked and loaded. Every one of them has the power and the potential
    to make the life of one of our children lost by accident or design.
    Child safety locks are simple and inexpensive, but they do have the
    power to prevent tragedy.
        I feel so strongly about them that in March I ordered Federal
    agencies to give them to our agents. Today, every FBI and ATF agent has
    such a child safety device, and by the 15th of October, every Federal
    agent, from the DEA to the U.S. Marshal, to the Border Patrol, to the
    Park Police, will have one as well. If a child safety lock is good
    enough for law enforcement, it ought to be good enough for the general
    public. These commonsense measures will help to cut off young people's
    access to guns that can cut short their lives.
        Today we are taking comprehensive action to protect our children and
    our communities from juvenile crime and gun violence. In Boston, where
    many of these efforts are already in place, youth murders have dropped
    80 percent in 5 years and not a single, solitary child has been killed
    with a handgun in a year and a half--in a year and a half. We can do
    that. Again I say, this is not rocket science; this is replication.
        You know, when I was in Houston a couple years ago and I saw the
    juvenile crime rate going down there when it was going up everywhere
    else, the mayor said, ``It's not very complicated. I've got 3,000 kids
    in a soccer league and 2,500 in a golf league, and most of them didn't
    know anything about either sport before we started.'' This is not rocket
    science; it is replication. We know what works. There is no excuse for
    not doing what works. And there is no excuse for the Congress not giving
    you the tools to do what works.
        Now, I believe the approach embodied in the legislation I presented
    gives us the best chance to prevent more of this violence and to
    actually break its back. That's what I believe. I believe it because I
    have seen so many of you do it. Now, the bill that passed the House of
    Representatives, I think, falls far short of the goals of the bill that
    I presented and far short of reflecting what you have proved works. A
    juvenile crime bill that doesn't crack down on guns and gangs, that
    doesn't guarantee more prosecutors, more probation officers, and more
    prevention programs after school is a juvenile crime bill in name only.
        I understand you can pass a bill and make it very popular if all it
    does is seem to penalize

    [[Page 720]]

    people. And I am not against tougher penalties; we have toughened a lot
    of penalties since I have been President. But to pretend that you can do
    that and not guarantee the police, the prosecutors, the probation
    officers, and the prevention programs and expect to have results is
    simply wrong. You work in this area, and you know it. So let's go back
    to the Congress and get a bill that will give you the tools to give our
    children their futures back and our people their neighborhoods and their
    streets back. We can do it together.
        Let me just say something about one specific problem. The illegal
    guns that youth gangs use do not just come out of thin air. They are
    bought and sold, traded and given in trade, just like any other guns.
    And all too often, it is adults who are making the transfer. So today,
    I'm directing the Secretary of the Treasury, Bob Rubin, to require all
    federally licensed gun dealers to post signs in their stores and issue
    written warnings with each gun they sell to put adult gun purchasers on
    clear and unambiguous notice that selling or giving a handgun to a minor
    is dangerous, it is wrong, but it is also against the law, and it is a
    felony so serious that it can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in
    prison. I want every adult who buys a gun to see that sign and think
    about it before they give a child a gun that could wind up in gang
    violence.
        In the last 4 years, we have proven that if we work together and
    learn from each other, we can begin to turn the tide and win the war, as
    Ray Kelly said. Now we have an opportunity that is real and genuine to
    build on that progress. Your presence here, your enthusiasm, and what I
    know about the work you have done back home give me great hope that we
    can give our children a safe and orderly environment where they can make
    the most of their lives.
        We know that a lot of this will have to be done at the community
    level. When we did the Summit of Service that the Presidents sponsored
    in Philadelphia, one of the five things we said we wanted for our
    children was a safe environment for every child in America to grow up
    in. And we know that a lot of that has to be done by you. But we also
    know that we at the national level have our responsibility, too. And our
    responsibility now is to continue to implement the crime bill and put
    the community police officers out there, to be faithful in our
    enforcement of all the Federal laws that we can, and to deal with the
    special problems of guns and to pass a smart, balanced juvenile justice
    crime bill that does more than talk tough.
        I pledge to work with Congress of both parties to pass such a bill.
    I look forward to working with all of you to get the job done, but I say
    again: The most powerful argument for doing it is the experience you
    have already had, the successes you have already achieved, the lives you
    have already saved.
        When you know what works and you do it and you see children's lives
    reclaimed, it becomes unconscionable not to do more. I am determined
    that we will do more and that we will win this incredibly important
    struggle.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:09 p.m. in Salon H of the Conference
    Center at Georgetown University. In his remarks, he referred to Under
    Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement Raymond W. Kelly; Father Leo
    O'Donovan, president, Georgetown University; Sarah Brady, chair, Handgun
    Control, Inc., and her husband, former White House Press Secretary James
    S. Brady; and Mayor Bob Lanier of Houston, TX.