[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[January 5, 1999]
[Pages 5-7]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on the Zero Tolerance for Drugs in Prison Initiative
January 5, 1999

    Thank you very much. Let me begin by just expressing my appreciation 
to all who have spoken and to all who are here for the years and years 
and years of commitment you have manifested in this endeavor. I thank my 
good friend Senator Leahy and Congressman 
Rangel. I thank General Reno and General McCaffrey 
for making it possible for us to continue to emphasize these things and 
to actually make progress, for being both practical and idealistic.
    Thank you, Mayor Griffin, for what you said 
and for what you're doing and for bringing your police chief, Chief 
Hoover, here with you.
    I want to say, obviously, a special word of appreciation to Kathleen 
Kennedy Townsend, who has 
literally redefined what it means to be a Lieutenant Governor----I would 
hate to succeed her as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland--[laughter]--for 
her indefatigable energy. I thank the others here from Maryland who are 
involved in her endeavor.
    I'd also like to say a special word of welcome to Judge Joel 
Tauber and all the others who are here 
from the drug courts throughout America. I'll have more to say about 
them in a moment, but I am especially grateful for their endeavors.
    Six years ago, as has already been said, our country was at peace, 
but too many of our communities were at war. Illegal drugs were ravaging 
cities on both coasts and the American heartland in between. Crack and 
methamphetamine use were at near record levels. Drug dealers controlled 
whole neighborhoods and thought nothing of opening fire on passing 
police cars. Many communities lived in terror; many children feared 
walking down the street.
    I actually met, in a school in California--I'll never forget this--
with a group of children who were drilled on how to jump out of their 
desk and hit the floor if they were subject to drive-by shootings. It 
had a searing impact on me. One of the reasons I ran for President was 
to give those kids their futures back. And all of you have done a lot to 
give them their futures back, and I'm very grateful to you.
    In every successive year, I have proposed a larger antidrug budget. 
In 1999, we had a 30-percent increase just between then and 1996, even 
as we produced the first balanced budget in a generation. Under General 
McCaffrey's leadership, we have put these 
resources to good use: unprecedented new tools for domestic enforcement; 
unprecedented new campaigns to

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convince young people to stay off drugs--I hope you saw one of our ads 
on the football game last night, if you watched it--unprecedented new 
efforts to stem the flow of drugs across our borders; unprecedented new 
efforts to stop the revolving door between the prison and the street.
    As you've heard from Attorney General Reno and General McCaffrey, 
this strategy is working. We do have the lowest crime rate in 25 years. 
Drug use is falling. Finally--thank goodness--drug use is beginning to 
fall among our young people.
    But the crime rate is still too high. The streets are still too 
violent. There is still too much drug use, especially in our prisons. 
The mayor of Reno whispered to me when Kathleen 
was talking that Mayor Daley told him it 
was easier to get drugs in the Illinois penitentiary than it was on the 
streets of Chicago. I say this not to criticize the Illinois 
penitentiary; that's a statement that could be made in more than half 
the States in this country. So we still have a lot to do. There is no 
better way to start than to help our prisoners break clean from drugs.
    Today we release a new study from the Department of Justice that 
offers more convincing evidence that drug use stokes all kinds of crime, 
from property crimes like burglary, auto theft, to violent crimes like 
assault and murder. It shows that one in six offenders landed in prison 
for a crime committed just to get money for drugs, that nearly a third 
of prisoners were using drugs at the time they committed their crimes, 
that more than 80 percent of prisoners have a history of drug use. And 
when you consider that--plus the breathtaking statistic that Lieutenant 
Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend gave us about the volume of heroin 
and cocaine used by people who are in the criminal justice system--it is 
clear to us that if we are going to continue to reduce the rate of 
crime, we have to do something to avoid releasing criminals with their 
dangerous drug habits intact.
    As you've heard from previous speakers, we've already done a lot to 
expand drug testing and treatment in Federal prisons and to encourage 
States to do the same. But today we want to make a dramatic leap 
forward. The balanced budget I will submit to Congress will contain a 
$215 million zero-tolerance drug program designed to promote drug 
supervision, our Nation's most comprehensive effort ever to test and 
treat not only criminals in prison but also those on probation and 
parole.
    To inmates in every State, we want to send a message: If you stay on 
drugs, you must stay behind bars. To probationers and parolees, we want 
to send a message: If you want to keep your freedom, you have to keep 
free of drugs.
    Through this initiative, we will also expand our efforts to help 
communities build and administer drug courts. Charlie Rangel mentioned 
Attorney General Reno's efforts as a young 
prosecutor. Many years ago, long before I ever thought I would be 
standing here as President, because my brother-in-law was a public defender in the Miami drug court that the 
Attorney General set up, I used to go and visit it in the eighties. I 
went three times; one time I stayed for the whole session of court, 
almost all day. I have never had a more exhilarating experience in a 
courtroom in my life, including the sessions of the United States 
Supreme Court I have attended, because finally I saw something that I 
thought could actually work to change people's lives, to restore people 
to productive use in society, to reduce the crime rate, to make people 
safer, and to stop the policy of warehousing people in ever-increasing 
numbers in order to keep our streets safe.
    When I took office, there were just a handful of these drug courts 
in operation, including the one that the Attorney General launched in Miami. Today, there are more than 400. If 
our budget proposal is approved by Congress, we can move to have more 
than 1,000 up and running by the end of next year. That is a worthy 
goal. It will change America for the better. It will give a lot of 
people their lives back and make our streets safer.
    I'm also proud to say that on top of these proposals, we will free 
up another $120 million for drug-free prison initiatives this year, 
funds to help States boost testing and treatment, funds to purge their 
prisons of drugs with advanced new technologies.
    At the end of this century, we've made great progress in our efforts 
to free our children and our communities from drugs and crime. As we 
begin a new century and a new millennium, we have an enormous 
opportunity to finish the job, to harness all the resources of the 
criminal justice system--our courts, our prosecutors, our prisons, our 
probation officers, our police--to break the drug habits of prisoners 
and people on parole and probation. We have to break this

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cycle. We have to give all these people a chance to be drug-free and to 
be productive citizens again. It is the only way we can ever, in the 
end, assure our children the future they deserve.
    Thank you all for what you do. God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:04 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the 
White House. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Jeff Griffin and Chief 
of Police Jerry Hoover of Reno, NV; Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend 
of Maryland; Judge Jeffrey S. Tauber, president, National Association of 
Drug Court Professionals; Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago, IL; and 
Hugh Rodham, the President's brother-in-law.