	     


			   THE WHITE HOUSE

		    Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                  April 11, 1994

	     
		       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
		     TO LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS
	     
			The Justice Department
			    Washington, DC



12:36 P.M. EDT


	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much, Officer Williams.  
If you just keep doing your work, and I'll be glad to carry your 
notebook anytime.  (Laughter.)  There are a lot of days when you do 
more than we do up here anyway.  (Laughter.)
	     
	     I want to thank you, and thank you, Earline Williams, 
for your commitment and your remarkable statement and the work you 
and your husband are doing.  Thank you, Eddie, for reminding us that 
we have an obligation to fight for your future.  Thanks for bringing 
your friends, and thank you, officers for giving him something to 
look up to and believe in.  (Applause.)
	     
	     I want to welcome the new officers from Albany, Georgia, 
and thank them for their commitment to law enforcement and thank all 
the other people in law enforcement who are here at the local and 
state and federal level.
	     
	     In the last congressional recess, like the Attorney 
General, I got out around the country and listened to people; talked 
to them about a lot of issues.  And I found that all over the country 
in every region, among people from all walks of life, all races and 
income groups and political parties, there is a deep concern about 
the tide of crime and violence in this country and about the 
underlying strains on our fabric as a common people that these have 
imposed.
	     
	     We have simply got to do everything we can to move 
forward in helping the American people to reduce crime; to say no to 
those things which they ought to say no to; and to give our young 
people some more things to say yes to.
	     
	     I came here today to emphasize how terribly important it 
is that the House of Representatives consider the crime bill 
immediately on its return.  The Speaker has agreed to do that.  I 
then want the Senate and the House to get together and resolve their 
differences and send me the crime bill as soon as possible.  The 
American people have waited long enough.  We don't need to waste 
their time with frivolous or political amendments and delay.  We 
don't need to take months on a task that can be done in a couple of 
weeks.   If the bill is on my desk in weeks, I will only take a 
minute to sign it.  And then the American people will begin to have 
the tools they need to solve so many of their problems.  
	     
	     This has been a good year for us in this country.  Our 
deficit is going down, and our economy is going up.  Twice as many 
private sector jobs have come into this economy in the last 14 months 
than in the previous four years.  After seven years of gridlock, the 
Brady Bill became the Brady Law, and is already working to stop 
felons and fugitives from purchasing handguns.  And I'm proud that it 
was passed with the help of America's law enforcement officers.
	     
	     But everything that we are trying to do to move this 
country forward and to bring this country together will be undermined 
unless we can give the American people a greater sense that they are 
secure in their homes, on their streets, and in their schools.  The 
number of murders has tripled since 1960, so has the number of crimes 
per uniformed police officer.  Death by gunfire will soon surpass 
death by car accidents.  Almost a third of all of our families have 
had someone victimized by crime.  Today, one in 20 American children 
carry a weapon to school, and over 150,000 stay home every day 
because they're afraid of what might happen to them in school.
	     
	     We know the crime bill cannot solve all these problems.  
We know many of them will have to be solved by those people who are 
here today in uniform and people like them, and the friends and 
neighbors they have, like Mrs. Williams.  We know that.  We know that 
unless there are young people like Eddie and his friends who are 
willing to work and be role models themselves and make something of 
their own lives, that everything we do here in Washington will be 
limited.  But we know, too, that we have to take the lead.  We have 
to take the initiative.  And that we can give people like these 
people the tools they need to seize control of their lives and make 
their communities safer and better places to learn, to work and to 
grow. 
	     
	     The crime bill provides funding for another 100,000 
police officers over five years for community policing because it 
works.  It will make a difference.  You already heard what Officer 
Williams said about 12 officers in Albany, Georgia.  The Mayor of 
Houston put 655 more police officers on the beat.  In 15 months, 
crime dropped 22 percent, murders went down 27 percent.  
	     
	     This can be done everywhere.  This bill, with community 
policing will help the police officers of our country not only to 
catch more criminals and put them behind bars, but to reduce crime 
and to connect with more young people before it's too late.
	     
	     I was very moved by what Eddie said about his attitude 
about the police, because of the work of these two fine police 
officers.  We know that crime can be reduced and that lives can be 
enhanced.  So as the Attorney General said, policing is a big part of 
this crime bill.
	     
	     If Congress passes the bill soon to give the American 
people more police officers, I'll make this commitment to you:  I'll 
cut through the bureaucracy and the red tape in Washington so that 
within a year 20,000 of these new officers will actually be hired and 
trained and working to make our streets safer.  If they'll send me 
the bill, we'll cut the red tape.  No more politics in Congress; no 
more red tape in the bureaucracy.  Let's give the police to the 
American people, and let's do it this year.  (Applause.)
	     
	     The second thing this bill is about is punishment.  And 
I want to emphasize, if I might, three things.  There's been a great 
deal of debate, and much honest disagreement about whether we ought 
to have some sort of three-strikes-and-you're-out bill.  I would like 
to make two points about that, as someone who started my public 
career as a state attorney general almost two decades ago now.  First 
of all, an overwhelming percentage of the really serious violent 
crimes are committed by a relatively few people.  Even a small 
percentage of the criminals in our country commit an overwhelming 
percentage of the really serious violent crimes.  
	     
	     Secondly, this law is designed to be directed, if it's 
properly drawn, against a narrow class of people -- those who do not 
commit crimes for which it's already one strike and you're out.  Keep 
in mind, many of our crimes today can get you a life sentence or a 
very long sentence just by doing it one time.  But there are people 
that are clearly and demonstrably highly likely to take life or to 
commit serious, horrible crimes.  We know them by their profiles --
who do things which clearly indicate this, and still they can wind up 
being paroled after relatively modest sentences. 
	     
	     This bill is designed, if properly drawn -- and the 
Attorney General has done a fine job of working on the bill that is 
coming through the House -- to be directed against that narrow class 
of people.  I do think those folks, you can say, if you do this three 
times, we do not think you should be paroled.  And I believe it will 
enable us, for those who think this is too harsh, to create more 
enlightened attitudes about other people who may be put in prison for 
too long a period of time, or who may need alternative rehabilitation 
strategies.  But these police officers are out there putting their 
lives on the line, oftentimes in the face of people who are back on 
the street that they know are highly likely to do something that is 
life-threatening.  
	     
	     So respectfully, I dispute those who believe that we 
can't have a three-strikes-and-you're-out law that is good, that is 
properly drawn and that makes a difference.  We shouldn't let a small 
percentage of even the criminal population terrorize the country if 
we can find a way to stop it.  And this is our best effort.
	     
	     The second point I want to make is that this bill does 
some other things about punishment, too.  This bill encourages states 
and localities to find alternative punishments for first-time 
nonviolent offenders, for young people -- boot camps or other kinds 
of community-based programs which may reconnect people to their 
communities before it is too late, and which will give them a chance 
not only to be punished but to learn something while they're doing 
their respective sentences.  So this is a smart punishment bill.
	     
	     The third thing this bill is about is prevention.  We 
know these programs work, too, especially for young people.  And I 
want to say a special word of thanks here to the Attorney General.  
When I appointed her, I wanted someone who had actual experience on 
the front lines fighting crime and who understood that you have to be 
both tough and smart.  And her relentless, constant, compassionate 
but tough-minded advocacy for a sensible prevention strategy is 
critical to the fact that we now have about a billion dollars in this 
plan for jobs for young people in high crime neighborhoods and 
recreation programs and summer programs and opportunities for young 
people to bond with caring, concerned adults who care about their 
future.  I thank her for that.  And that's a very important part of 
this bill.  It will make a huge difference to young people of 
America.  (Applause.)
	     
	     A big part of that is making the schools safe and drug-
free and free of violence again.  If our children can't be safe in 
school and going to and from school, they're going to have a very 
hard time.  After all, a lot of the young people most at risk of 
being victims of crime as well as at risk of becoming criminals at a 
young age, live in communities very different from those that most of 
us grew up in -- communities where the family structure has been 
weakened; communities where other organizations are weaker than they 
once were; and communities in which there is almost no work for 
people to do.  When you take work and community and family out of a 
neighborhood, you create an awful vacuum in which only bad things --
only bad things -- can occur unless someone moves in to fill the 
vacuum.  
	     
	     Our schools are trying.  But we are asking them to do in 
many of our communities today, we are asking them to do things that 
no one ever thought the schools could do alone.  And we have got to 
continue to support them through these safe school initiatives and 
the other prevention plans.  So that's what we're trying to do in 
this crime bill --more police, more punishment, more prevention.
	     
	     In this time of budgetary constraints, the very idea 
that we're about to pass a program that will involve over $20 billion 
in new money is an astonishing thing.  It's a lot more money for 
state and local initiatives, but we have to do it.  And I am proud of 
the fact that it is going to be paid for, not with a tax increase, 
but with the phase-down of the federal government.  We are reducing 
over a five-year period the size of the federal bureaucracy by about 
250,000 people.  And all the savings are going to go on into a trust 
fund to pay for this crime bill, so that at the end of five years we 
will have a federal government that it is small as it was when 
President Kennedy was in office; and the money saved from that 
downsizing will be giving our communities a chance and the money 
saved from that downsizing will be giving our communities a chance to 
give our kids a future and our people a chance to be safe on the 
streets.  I think that's a pretty good switch, and I appreciate the 
initiative in doing it.  (Applause.)
	     
	     Let me say again in closing, there is not a moment to 
lose.  People are trying everywhere to do something about this, and 
everywhere they are being frustrated.  The case of the Chicago 
Housing Authority has been in the news because just a few days ago, a 
federal district court declared that the Housing Authority's own 
policy of sweeping their units for guns, for ineligible people living 
there and for drugs, was unconstitutional.  As soon as I heard about 
that, I asked the Attorney General and the Secretary of Housing and 
Urban Development, Henry Cisneros, to develop another policy that is 
constitutional and effective; because I have been to the Chicago 
housing projects.  And I have been in the places where the sweeps 
occurred, and where the housing units were cleaned up, and where the 
people who were living in the housing units were hired to work with 
the police to ride up in the elevator and walk down the stairs and 
keep the places clean.  And I saw children pouring out of housing 
units -- pouring out -- to run up to the head of the Chicago Housing 
Authority, Vince Lane, as if he were their saviour because he simply 
gave them a safe place to live.
	     
	     So does this administration want to follow the 
Constitution of the United States?  You bet we do.  But I can't 
believe that we can't find a way to have a constitutional search of 
places that we know are full of victims of crime because they harbor 
criminals.  We are going to find a way to solve this problem.
	     
	     Thirteen people died in Chicago violently last weekend 
-- three of them in the Robert Taylor Homes Project.  Last night, 
Secretary Cisneros spent the night in that project, and he called me 
today from there and we had a conversation about this.  He and the 
Attorney General are working on it.  But I say this just to make this 
point:  Those folks living out there in those housing projects, most 
of them are not criminals, most of them are good people.  They are 
obey the law; they're doing the best they can to raise their 
children.  They deserve -- they deserve our best and our quickest 
efforts.
	     
	     So I say to you again in closing -- I thank you for 
coming here, but we know we're all preaching to the saved today.  
Tomorrow when the Congress comes back, there are many other things 
that will claim their attention.  I will ask them to think about many 
other things.  You must say, "Pass the crime bill now."
	     
	     Thank you very much.  (Applause.)

				 END12:53 P.M. EDT

