[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.