[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
[February 19, 1997]
[Pages 174-179]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the University of Massachusetts in Boston
February 19, 1997

    Thank you. Mr. Mayor; Commissioner Evans; Probation Officer Tanya 
Brooks; President 
Bulger; Chancellor Sherry Penney; Governor 
Weld; Senator Kerry; Congressman Moakley;

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Congressman Kennedy--I understand you're also an alumni of this 
university; Attorney General Harshbarger, the president of the National 
Association of Attorneys General; thank you all for welcoming me here.
    And I'm delighted to be here with two of my great partners in this 
endeavor, our wonderful Attorney General, Janet Reno, and the Under 
Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement, Ray Kelly. Thank you for 
being here. We're all glad to be here.
    I want to thank all the police officers for being here, especially 
the Voices in Blue for singing the national anthem. They were great. 
Great job, gentlemen. And I'd like to thank the students at the 
University of Massachusetts at Boston. I know that 80 percent of the 
students--I've been told at least that 80 percent of the students here 
are working virtually full-time while pursuing their degrees. That's a 
great tribute to you. And if our budget passes, we'll have the direct 
loan program, the AmeriCorps program, tax cuts for tuition, and a huge 
increase in Pell grants and work-study. I hope it will help you all.
    Oh, there's one more thing before I begin my prepared remarks. This 
is my first trip to Boston and to Massachusetts in 1997, and if you will 
forgive me a purely personal remark, I want to thank the people of 
Massachusetts for giving me the biggest margin of victory of any State 
in the country. Thank you very much. [Applause] Thank you.
    Let me begin, if I might, by trying to put today's event into some 
context. You heard the mayor talking about declining crime generally in 
Boston. Let me just ask you to go back to 4 or 5 years ago. When I 
assumed this office, I wanted to do basically two big things. One is, I 
wanted to kind of get America fixed up; I wanted things to work again. 
And then I wanted to get all of us together to focus on what we need to 
do to prepare our people for a new century; to preserve the American 
dream for everyone who is willing to work for it without regard to their 
background or where they start out in life; to preserve a sense of 
community that embraces every American who is willing to be a 
responsible citizen; and to create a sense that our families, our 
neighborhoods, our workplaces, our schools, all of our organizations 
were working again; and to maintain our leadership in a rapidly changing 
world. But first we had to make sure things would work.
    And the first thing we worked through in Washington was an economic 
program that was designed to change the whole economic direction of the 
last several years, to get away from spending ourselves into immediate 
prosperity through constant deficits to a longer-term strategy to bring 
the deficit down, get interest rates down, invest in our people, and 
prove we could trade and compete with the rest of the world.
    Now, I just got a report this morning on the last inflationary 
numbers of that 4-year period, which says that the core rate of 
inflation--that is the basic things people buy--the inflation rate 
dropped from 3\1/2\ percent to 2\1/2\ percent in the previous 4 years; 
and that the combined rates of unemployment and inflation on average 
through 4 years, together were 8.7 percent. That's the lowest since 
Lyndon Johnson was the President of the United States, and that's a good 
sign. That's a good sign.
    But what I want to ask you to focus on today is that in some ways 
the whole question of having safe streets, safe neighborhoods, safe 
schools, and safe children has to be prior to economic opportunity, 
because if people are living in constant fear, if their lives are always 
disoriented, if they are completely unpredictable, then it is very hard 
to say to them, ``You should stay in school. You should learn all you 
can. You should look forward to a better future. The 21st century will 
give you more chances to live out your dreams than ever before.'' And if 
the answer you get back is, ``What do you mean, man, I'm trying to stay 
alive until lunch time,'' then it is very difficult to make this country 
work.
    So we have spent a lot of time, as you heard the previous speakers 
discuss, working on this. I asked the Attorney General to assume her 
office because she was a prosecutor in a big urban county in America 
with a world of problems and because she had learned that only by 
empowering the people who lived there that she worked with could she not 
only catch criminals but, more importantly, prevent crime and save 
children for a better future. And we have been working with the attorney 
generals, with the prosecutors, with community leaders, with others all 
across the country for 4 years to try to create the conditions that 
would make it possible for normal life to prevail in our cities and in 
other places which had been victimized by crime.

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    When we passed the crime bill in 1994 with the help of all the 
Members of Congress here on this platform--and I thank them for it--we 
made a commitment to put 100,000 new police on our streets so we could 
go back to community policing. Why? Because violent crime had tripled in 
30 years, and the police forces had increased by 10 percent--300 percent 
against 10 percent. What happened? As a result, people felt overwhelmed 
and more and more police officers had to ride together in cars instead 
of walking on streets in neighborhoods and working with their neighbors, 
so that in a bizarre way, we actually reduced the coverage of the police 
just so they could be safe.
    And now this whole concept of neighborhood or community policing, 
which Boston has done so brilliantly, is sweeping the country. That, 
plus the Brady bill, plus the ban on the assault weapons, plus the new 
efforts to steer young people away from crime, plus tougher penalties 
for serious offenders, all those things now taking hold all across 
America have given us 5 years of declining crime for the first time in 
decades. And that is very, very good news.
    But we have to now look at step two because until last year's 
statistics, we had this heartbreaking, heartbreaking evidence that the 
crime rate in America was going down, but the crime rate among juveniles 
under 18 was going up. Violence among adults was going down, even young 
adults; violence among juveniles going up. Drug use among adults, people 
over 18, going down dramatically; drug use among people under 18 going 
up.
    Last year, we began to see some hope that it might be dropping off, 
but we haven't even had 2 years in a row. But we know that in Boston 
there have been big changes. And we know that we just started the 
largest class of children in our schools in history. There are now about 
52 million young Americans in our schools, the largest school-age 
population ever, even bigger than the biggest baby boom year, now in our 
schools.
    And so we know we've got about 6 years to turn this juvenile crime 
thing around, or our country is going to be living with chaos. And my 
successors will not be giving speeches about the wonderful opportunities 
of the global economy, they'll be trying to keep body and soul together 
for people on the streets of these cities if we don't do everywhere in 
America what you have begun to do in Boston and save our children.
    So the crime bill in '94, the 100,000 police, the neighborhood 
policing, the Brady bill, the assault weapons ban, all those things were 
step one. Step two has got to be a very sharp and disciplined focus on 
the problems of juvenile violence, juvenile crime, juvenile gangs. 
Ninety-five percent of our largest cities and 88 percent of our smaller 
cities report that they are plagued by gang crime. Experts predict the 
number of people arrested for violent crimes will double by the year 
2010 unless we do something about it. Fighting, therefore, juvenile 
crime has got to become our top law enforcement priority.
    When Boston launched Operation Night Light, when police and 
probation officers together can make nightly visits to the homes of 
young people on probation to make sure they're not in violation; when 
you had your Operation Cease-Fire vigorously enforcing graffiti, 
truancy, noise statutes to reclaim neighborhoods and the conditions of 
ordinary life; when you launched the Boston gun project to shut down 
illegal gun dealers who sell to young people, by tracing serial numbers 
and severely punishing those who break the law--these things will work.
    Seventy percent of your young people on probation are now sticking 
to it. That's a huge percentage if you compare it to other places around 
the country. Youth murders have dropped 80 percent in 5 years, and as 
you have heard twice already, you haven't had a single child killed with 
a gun in a year and a half in this city. How I would pray that could 
happen in every city in America.
    I want to compliment the mayor on his youth council and meeting with 
young people who are representative of the city every 6 weeks. And I'd 
like to thank the young woman from the council who appeared today, 
Lanita, on the program. I'd like to thank the young people who have been 
on probation who are making something of their lives. Young Terry 
Thompson was on our program today. I thank him for being a model of 
that.
    What I want to say to you is that we cannot permit this to be only 
an achievement in Boston, because if it is only an achievement in 
Boston, it will be harder for Boston to continue to achieve. Sooner or 
later, what we have to do is to create the notion that it is normal for 
kids not to get shot, and so nobody claps when you say no kid has been 
killed.

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    Do you realize when I was the age of the young people who were on 
our program today--one is 19, I think the other is 17--if I had stood up 
as a young person there, wanting to be noticed, wanting to give a nice 
speech, wanting to give accounting of myself, and I had said, ``We 
haven't had a young person killed in our town for the last year and a 
half,'' do you know what everybody would have said? ``So what? What's 
that fool talking about?'' [Laughter] Today everybody claps. We have to 
keep working until the answer is, ``So what?'' That ought to be the 
answer, shouldn't it? Isn't that what you want? [Applause]
    The truth is that all across our country children are still killing 
children for shoes, for jackets, for turf. And we can stop it. The truth 
is that Boston and just a few other cities have removed any fig leaf of 
excuse that we can't do anything about it. You have now proved that it 
can be stopped, and therefore there is no excuse for not stopping it. 
And the United States of America, through the Congress, this year, 
should pass a law to give every community the tools that you have used 
to make your city safe again, so that we can do it everywhere in 
America.
    I have four parts to the legislation that I am presenting Congress 
today. First, we have to break the backs of the gangs and punish 
juveniles who commit violent crimes with real severity. We have to 
finish putting 100,000 police on the street. And we have to make sure 
communities have the resources to prosecute people who violate the law. 
This bill will help communities to hire new prosecutors to directly deal 
with violent juveniles; to launch antigang units; to pursue, prosecute, 
and punish members who really hurt people. It will give judges more 
power to crack down on gang members who intimidate witnesses, and it 
will give Federal prosecutors for the first time the authority in 
appropriate circumstances to prosecute serious violent juveniles as 
adults.
    The second thing we have to do is to keep drugs and guns away from 
our children. The Brady bill--listen to this--has already blocked more 
than 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers from buying a handgun. 
That's an old small number. We'll have some new ones in the next few 
days. But it doesn't permit someone who commits a violent crime as a 
juvenile from buying a handgun once he or she turns 18. I think we 
should close that loophole and extend the Brady bill so that anyone who 
commits a violent crime should not be given the right to buy a handgun.
    Our plan would also require child safety locks on handguns to 
prevent unauthorized use and tragic accident. We ought to do that. We 
have begun an effort actually modeled on the Boston gun project in 17 
other cities to crack down on those who illegally sell guns to young 
people.
    And I said this in the former meeting--I want to say it again 
because I think most Americans don't know it. The Treasury Department 
that license people who sell guns--they have to have a Federal license--
has cracked down on that whole process in the last 3 years, and there 
are now fewer than half the licensed Federal gun dealers there were just 
3 years ago. We are trying to get control of this process.
    Our plan has the largest antidrug effort ever to stop drugs at their 
source, punish those who push them, and most importantly, to keep 
working to steer young people away from them. General McCaffrey, our 
Nation's drug czar, has recommended that I have asked for funding to 
launch a massive national advertising campaign to deal with something 
that I had thought--wrongly--was basic, and that is how dangerous drugs 
are. It is clear that the main reason that drug use among teenagers is 
going up, while it is going down among people between the ages of 18 and 
35, is that too many teenagers no longer believe that drugs are not only 
wrong and illegal but they can kill them. That--it is clear.
    And it is clear that a lot of young adults who used to be a big part 
of the drug problem now do understand that they can die from this as 
well as be punished for it. And somehow we have got to bring the 
attitudes of the teenagers in line with the attitudes of the young 
adults so that we can deal with that. And we'll be working with that.
    I think every State should now begin to require drug tests of people 
for essential services like driver's licenses. That would send a strong 
message out and be unpopular with a lot of young people who otherwise 
think their President is a pretty good fellow. [Laughter] But I think 
it's the right thing to do.
    The third thing we have to do is to reform the juvenile justice 
system so that it can handle today's juvenile offenders. Most systems 
were designed to deal with truants and other minor problems, not violent 
problems. And we need

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more people like this fine probation officer that introduced me today 
and more of those folks working with the police.
    The story you have created here is the story we want to recreate in 
every community in the country. I want to hear more stories. I want it 
to be normal when I go some place and say, we go together, and we got 
into people's homes, and we visit with them at night, and they're glad 
to see us, and they understand that we're all on the same side and we're 
trying to save these kids' lives and give them a future. That's the 
story we want to hear everywhere.
    We have to have more special court proceedings for young people, 
with greater flexibility to handle juveniles and tougher penalties to 
punish those who are really gone and then more flexibility and other 
opportunities to save those that ought to be saved. The real answer to 
this has got to be prevention. We have got to prevent these things from 
happening in the first place. That's what all the law enforcement people 
know.
    Finally, we have to help our young people to stay on the right 
track. Our strategy will help to fund 1,000 new after-school initiatives 
in communities across the country to help keep schools open after 
school, on the weekends, in the summer. Listen to this: More than 50 
percent of the juvenile crime in America occurs in the 3 hours after 
school is closed and before the parents are home. That's a stunning 
statistic. You take 3 or 4 hours out of the day, and you've cut the 
problem in half. Now, we don't want our young people left alone on 
street corners when they can be in school or at home. And we have to 
have ways that help our educators, our parents, our religious and 
community leaders to try to save these kids.
    This anti-gang and youth violence strategy is based on what we know 
works. It is really a national framework to give other communities the 
chance to get the resources to do what you're trying to do in Boston. 
That is all it is. Tough when you should be tough; smart when you should 
be smart; compassionate when you should be compassionate; using 
everybody, building partnerships, letting everybody play a role; 
requiring communities to take responsibility for their own streets and 
their own kids and then giving you the outside support you need--that is 
all this bill does.
    It is the critical next step in our fight to have a safe America and 
to give our children a safe childhood. And I ask you here in 
Massachusetts to send a clear message. We know if this can be done in 
Boston, it can be done in every community, in every neighborhood of 
every size in the United States, and we ask the United States Congress 
to do what you've done here in Massachusetts: cross all party lines, 
throw politics away, throw the speeches in the trashcan, join hands. 
Let's do what works and make America the safe place it has to be.
    Let me just make one other point to you. The citizens of this 
country have got to do their part--every citizen. And one of the things 
that I want to announce today that I'm very proud of is--that I think 
will help make all of you be better citizens and to support community 
policing, which is clearly the single most decisive element in bringing 
the crime rate, the neighborhood policing system.
    Not very long ago I was made aware of a problem that--like a lot of 
problems ordinary people have that Presidents don't know about because 
our lives are so isolated--I learned that a lot of the 911 numbers were 
breaking down because 911 was being clogged up not only by genuine 
emergencies but by other legitimate calls that weren't really 
emergencies. And so I asked the Federal Communications Commission to set 
up a national community policing number for non-emergencies so that 911 
calls would always go through when there was a matter of life and death, 
but all the other calls could be handled as well. This morning, the FCC 
announced that they are designating and setting aside the numbers 311 as 
a national non-emergency community policing number. And I believe it 
will help you.
    So to all of you out here who are just citizens, I say: Use both 
numbers, and talk to your neighbors about using them in the right way. 
Be a part of a neighborhood watch. Support these community police 
officers, these probation officers, and do what you can to play your 
part. We'll do our part. You have to do your part.
    If this country is going to be the country it ought to be in the 
21st century, we can't have any more reports like the one that came out 
of the Center for Disease Control a few days ago saying that 75 percent 
of all the kids murdered in the industrial world are killed in the 
United States. What we've got to do is to create the record of the last 
year and a half in Boston for the United States. If you give our kids 
back their lives and their future, they

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will make America the world's greatest country in the 21st century.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 12:22 p.m. at the Clark Athletic Center. In 
his remarks, he referred to Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston; Paul Evans, 
Boston police commissioner; William Bulger, president, and Sherry H. 
Penney, chancellor, University of Massachusetts; Gov. William Weld and 
Attorney General L. Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts; and Lanita 
Tolentino and Terry Thompson, members of the Mayor's Youth Council. A 
portion of these remarks could not be verified because the tape was 
incomplete.