[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 37 (Monday, September 19, 1994)]
[Pages 1750-1751]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6717--National Gang Violence Prevention Week, 1994

September 10, 1994

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    Robert Sandifer was 8 years old the first time he was arrested by 
police. He was 11 years old when he died, a victim, police believe, of a 
gang-related killing. He was also suspected of killing Shavon Dean, an 
innocent victim of an earlier gang-related shooting. In Shavon and 
Robert's hometown, the number of gang homicides has nearly tripled since 
1980. And in neighborhoods across America, too many mothers and fathers 
have experienced the anguish of losing a child to the meanness of the 
streets. For them and for all of us, it is past time to end the 
violence.
    At younger and younger ages, boys and girls are turning to gangs. 
For a child without an involved family, a gang offers a feeling of 
belonging. For a young person without options for tomorrow, a gang 
offers a sense of

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purpose. For all those born in a home cordoned off against danger, with 
bars on the windows and chains on the doors, life on the streets seems 
all too often a taste of freedom they have never known. But American 
freedom is better than that. We know this. We see freedom at work every 
day in the determined faces of parents striving to make a better life 
for themselves and their children. And we see it every day in big cities 
and small towns across the country as Americans come together to put the 
spirit of community to work.
    Confronted with the horror of children planning their own funerals, 
our Nation has begun planning for the future. Our first, best hope is in 
the common cause of those around us. A community that shares life's 
experiences can be an important source of strength and understanding in 
a world that seems filled with growing violence and diminishing hope. 
Families and communities are coming together across the country to bring 
hope to even our most troubled youth. In Birmingham, Alabama, where 
police officers are sponsoring athletic teams and tutoring programs in 
52 neighborhoods, youth crime has dropped by 30 percent. In Los Angeles, 
teachers and sheriffs are working in teams to show kids alternative 
methods of resolving conflicts, encouraging them to develop a sense of 
self-worth apart from gangs. The 1994 crime bill seeks to provide 
grassroots programs like these the resources they need to push forward 
in their efforts and to succeed in their fight.
    In an invaluable victory for citizens across the country, the 
Congress passed, and I will soon sign, a crime bill that is designed to 
save the lives of children like Shavon and Robert. This path-breaking 
legislation will punish hardened young criminals by requiring stronger 
penalties, and it will expand the use of community boot camps, drug 
courts, and other alternative sanctions to stop first-time offenders 
from beginning a lifetime of crime. It bans 19 of the deadliest assault 
weapons, and it goes a long way toward keeping guns out of the hands of 
juveniles. With strong measures of discipline and training, drug 
treatment and education, this bill takes on the sickness of gangs and 
drugs and gives our young people a new chance at life. Ours is important 
work: It is about trying to save a generation of children and to secure 
the future life of a country. It is a job we can surely do.
    Ours remains the greatest Nation the world has ever known because we 
have not shied away from challenges. Rather, we have consistently sought 
to surmount them. The problem of gang violence is among the most 
profound we as a people have ever faced. We must respect our young 
people enough to give them a positive choice for the future. We must 
take responsibility for teaching them to choose what is right. The 
solutions are within our reach. The power to change America is within 
ourselves. Together, we must work to redeem the promise that every young 
life holds.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim the week 
of September 12 through September 16, 1994, as ``National Gang Violence 
Prevention Week.'' I call upon the people of the United States to 
observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this tenth day of 
September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
nineteenth.
                                     William Jefferson Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 11:41 a.m., September 
12, 1994]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on 
September 13.