    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 1 (Monday, January 11, 1999)]
    [Pages 5-7]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    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-- [laughter]--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

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    tools for domestic enforcement; unprecedented new campaigns to 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.

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        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 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; and Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago, IL.