    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 53 (Monday, January 4, 1999)]
    [Pages 2535-2536]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks Announcing the Children Exposed to Violence Initiative

    December 29, 1998

        Thank you very much, Eric Holder, for your leadership and your
    obvious intense commitment to this issue. Thank you, Chief, for your
    good work. When you were describing the initiatives in New Haven
    involving the Yale Child Study Center, it struck a particularly
    responsive chord because when I met my wife, over 25 years ago at the
    law school, she was also working with the Yale Child Study Center. And
    it's a great institution.
        We're delighted to be joined here by leaders of law enforcement and
    leaders of law enforcement organizations; Montgomery County Council
    member Marilyn Praisner. And I want to say a special word of welcome to
    Congressman Bud Cramer of Alabama who has supported the 100,000 police
    program. We thank you, sir, for your presence here.
        This is an important time for us to be making this announcement
    because the holiday season is always focused on our children, and
    properly so. I want our children to be at the center of our attention
    every day, every week, all year long. Today we come here to talk about
    new actions to help millions of children who are exposed every year to
    violence either as witnesses or victims.
        For many, many of them, it is very difficult to be a child because
    there is too much violence, too much cruelty, too much incivility.
    Children experience these things in our society at younger and younger
    ages. That is why we have worked hard--the Attorney General, the Deputy
    Attorney General, and others in our administration--to strengthen
    families, to bring safety and order to our schools, our communities, our
    streets.
        We passed a crime bill with tougher penalties and more prevention.
    We've enforced zero tolerance for guns in schools expelling more than
    6,000 students in 1997 who brought weapons to schools. We've expanded
    and want to continue to expand after-school programs to keep children
    off the streets during the after-school hours when juvenile crime soars.
    We do have--the chief mentioned the 100,000 police program, the
    community policing program. We've now funded about 91,000 of those
    100,000 police. We're ahead of schedule and under budget, and I hope we
    can keep going.
        With these efforts and with the efforts of countless parents and
    teachers, principals, judges, police officers, and others, real progress
    is being made, as you have heard. New crime statistics released by the
    Justice Department this past weekend show that overall crime has dropped
    to its lowest level in 25 years. Property and violent crime are down
    more than 20 percent since 1993, the murder rate down by nearly 30
    percent. Juvenile crime rates finally have also started to fall. The
    juvenile murder rate has dropped 17 percent in one year, and juvenile
    arrest rates are now down 2 years in a row.
        These are good signs. We should be pleased; we should be thankful.
    But we should not be complacent, for these rates are still very, very
    high--too high for any civilized society to tolerate. And there are
    still far too many children who are victims of violence; too many being
    abused and neglected; too many still witnessing serious violence with
    traumatic effects on them that, as you have already heard, will last a
    lifetime.
        As the First Lady's Zero To Three conference last year showed,
    children's exposure to violence has tremendous negative consequences for
    them and for all the rest of us. A child who experiences serious
    violence is 50 percent--50 percent--more likely to be arrested as a
    juvenile and nearly 40 percent more likely to be arrested as an adult.
    If you want to keep the crime rates going down, you have to do more to
    break the cycle of violence to which children are exposed.

    [[Page 2536]]

        Today we launch a new Child Exposed to Violence Initiative,
    sponsored by the Justice Department, directed by Deputy Attorney General
    Holder. The aim of the initiative is to combat violence against
    children, to prevent children who are exposed to violence from being
    victimized a second time by the justice system.
        As part of the initiative, I announce today four specific actions.
    First, I'm asking the Justice Department to send legislation to Congress
    to impose tougher penalties against those who expose children to
    violence. I believe it's time to send a message through the court that
    when a man assaults or kills someone in the presence of a child, he has
    committed not one horrendous act but two; time to ask why a bank robber
    who unintentionally kills an innocent bystander can be charged with
    felony murder, but a repeat child abuser who unintentionally kills a
    child cannot be.
        Second, I'm directing the Justice Department to develop and
    distribute the critical information State and local law enforcement
    agencies need to do a better job of responding to the needs of children
    who have been victimized by a crime. Too often children are victimized
    anew by a criminal justice system that is designed by and for adults.
    With the help of the Justice Department's new training videos and in-
    the-field user guides, the first of which we are releasing today,
    criminal justice agencies all over our Nation can begin to provide
    children who have been exposed to violence with the healing they need
    and deserve.
        Third, today we announce $10 million in Federal Safe Start grants to
    12 cities to develop the kinds of comprehensive responses to children
    exposed to violence that New Haven has pioneered and that the chief so
    ably described just a few moments ago. The New Haven experience shows
    that trained law enforcement officers, paired with child psychologists,
    can provide the stability and comfort children need to overcome their
    feelings of fear and chaos that result from exposure to violence.
        Fourth, I asked the Justice Department to hold a national summit on
    children exposed to violence next June, cohosted by the Department of
    Health and Human Services, local law enforcement agencies, media
    organizations, elected officials, the National Network of Children's
    Advocacy Centers, and other groups.
        By working together, we have already made significant progress
    against crime and violence. We have made significant progress to make
    our children's lives safer. But if you look at the numbers of people who
    are still involved, the statistics are staggering and unacceptable. So I
    say, the fact that this progress has been made should give us courage,
    should give us hope, but should steel our determination to do the much,
    much greater work that lies ahead.
        There is no excuse for us to lose any of our children. And if we
    keep working and we keep our children at the center of our concerns, we
    can make the 21st century a much, much safer, better, more wholesome
    place for them than the last three and a half decades of this century
    have been.
        Thank you very much. Happy New Year.

    Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Melvin H. Wearing, chief of
    police, New Haven, CT; and Marilyn Praisner, president, Montgomery
    County Council.