1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 JANET RENO 10 SEPTEMBER 5, 1996 11 1:28 P.M. 12 DOUBLETREE HOTEL 13 SYMFANY BALLROOM 14 BROAD AND LOCUST STREETS 15 PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 1 2 3 4 MS. RENO: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just 5 have appreciated the opportunity to work with you 6 and I thank you. And it's great to be here with 7 the local District Attorney. I have a real strong 8 feeling about local DAs and it's wonderful to see 9 Michael and them working together because that's 10 what it's all about. You talk about partnership in 11 the title of this conference, and that's what we 12 should be about in America, bringing people 13 together to address the issue of violence in a 14 common sense way that has nothing to do with being 15 Republican or Democrat, between being a federal 16 prosecutor or a local prosecutor, but it is 17 bringing everybody together in the community to 18 address the problem as partners. It's saying 19 police can't solve the problem by themselves but 20 police and teachers and businessmen and parks and 21 recreation specialists and citizens who care can 22 make a difference. 23 One of the points that was made to me as 24 I have traveled around the nation, however, is I 25 think we can make a difference but I'm not sure. 3 1 Sometimes it gets so frustrating when we go two 2 steps forward and one step back and we don't know 3 whether we're getting anywhere. I'm here to tell 4 you I think we are getting places and reducing 5 violence in this country. Violence is down in most 6 major cities. Youth violence, which has been 7 escalating over these last ten years, is down for 8 the first time. It may be a blip but if we fight 9 hard it will not be a blip on the screen. We can 10 make our communities safer for our children. I 11 feel like I'm preaching to the choir. 12 You are my heroes and heroines. I've 13 looked at the conference scheduling and the 14 conference program and you're involved in so many 15 critical issues. Don't give up, fight harder and 16 we can all make a difference, if we approach it in 17 just a common sense way. Let's look at it. 18 The Mayor mentioned punishment. And 19 punishment is important in prevention. What I find 20 as I've traveled to many communities is that people 21 feel afraid, they don't feel safe in walking out of 22 their door thus they won't come down to the 23 community center, they don't want to reach out and 24 work with others, they stay behind their door. But 25 if we develop an antiviolence initiative that takes 4 1 out that drug gang that has terrorized the 2 neighborhood, it is so exciting to come back in a 3 year or two and have people describe how people 4 have suddenly started coming out, joining together 5 and working to make a difference in terms of 6 preventing crime. So what we have tried to do is 7 work with the FBI, DEA and State and local 8 prosecutors and the police to focus on the truly 9 dangerous offenders, the violent drug gangs, the 10 violent traffickers and take effective action 11 against them. 12 Now, there are some people that are going 13 to be going to jail. That's not going to help if 14 that person is coming back to the community 15 particularly sooner rather than later. I was so 16 impressed to see in the conference program focus on 17 transition back to the community. If we are going 18 to prevent crime in this country, if we're going to 19 prevent violence, one of the first big steps that 20 we can take is to make sure that all offenders 21 returning to the community have job training, have 22 opportunities at job placement, have some support 23 symptoms that can help them get off on the right 24 foot. It makes no difference to send a man back to 25 the community to the apartment of the open air drug 5 1 market where he got into trouble in the first place 2 without having a support system that can keep him 3 on the straight and narrow. You don't think he's 4 going to succeed if he goes back without a job and 5 without a skill that can enable him to earn a 6 living wage. These are the things that we've got 7 to focus on in making a common sense approach to 8 how we stop crime. 9 But we've got to be careful about how we 10 do it. We can teach them a job but if we don't 11 teach them to get to work on time or how to 12 interview or how to go out and apply for a job or 13 how to save money, it's not going to work. For the 14 woman who has just been incarcerated as a second or 15 a third time offender because she's been using 16 drugs or selling small amounts, and she has her 17 baby in prison, it's not going to make any sense to 18 send her back to the community. But if you do what 19 has been done in the State of New York and develop 20 an infant nursery in the prison and if you develop 21 child development programs that teach that person 22 how to be a good parent for the first time in her 23 life, she is going to have a far greater chance of 24 success on the outside. This is what violence 25 prevention is all about. And it is so exciting to 6 1 walk into one of those nurseries. I often say you 2 can walk into a place and they can paint it up and 3 fix it up but you can't change the expression on 4 the face of those that are involved, either the 5 staff or the clients, and when you walk in and see 6 the babies, see the parents, see the staff, you 7 know they have created a partnership that is making 8 a difference. When the lady tells you I lost a kid 9 on the outside, I don't know where she is, they 10 took her away from me, but I'm never going to lose 11 this child because I finally know how to raise a 12 child, you realize what common sense steps you are 13 taking to prevent violence and to prevent the cycle 14 of crime. 15 Where does violence come from? I think 16 it comes first from the home. The child who 17 watches his father beat his mother comes to accept 18 violence as a way of life. For too long in this 19 nation, police, prosecutors and others just said 20 that's a domestic, and they didn't really 21 intervene, they didn't take the case to court, they 22 didn't pursue it. People like Lynn Abraham and 23 others are taking the lead in trying to focus on 24 the issue of family and domestic violence. 25 When I became a prosecutor in Miami in 7 1 1978 I went to the medical examiner and had the 2 poly clinic do a study of who had been killed in 3 Dade County in the 20 previous years. Forty (40) 4 percent of the cases were related to domestic 5 violence husband-wife, boyfriend-girlfriend, 6 ex-spouse. We developed a domestic intervention 7 program. It is wonderful to go back to Dade County 8 now and find a domestic violence center in 9 operation, find judges trained in domestic violence 10 focusing on the issue. It is wonderful to go to a 11 meeting and find that the president of the American 12 Medical Association together with the president of 13 the AVA focusing on domestic violence. Unless we 14 focus on it and end violence in the home, we are 15 never going to end it on the streets or in the 16 schools of this nation. 17 Congress, in a bipartizan effort, made 18 this great step forward with the passage of the 19 Violence Against Women Act in 1994 that provides 20 stop monies as grants to states. But we require 21 that the states plan carefully with the communities 22 in making sure that these monies are used right. 23 Make sure that you work with your state agency 24 distributing these monies if you're involved or 25 feel the need for a domestic violence program in 8 1 your community or the enhancement of a battered 2 spouse shelter. But this is such critical work. 3 And if you can develop programs where the 4 prosecutors are trained, the judges understand the 5 importance of it and there are aftercare programs 6 that can make a difference, we can reduce this 7 violence. We have also been interested in what can 8 be done through community policing. And through 9 the Cops program we have made grants available to 10 police departments across the country to be used 11 for specialized community policing work in domestic 12 violence. 13 I think this is so important because in 14 Miami we had formed a group composed of a community 15 police officer, a social worker and a public health 16 nurse. We sited them in a public housing project 17 that had significant crime. The crime began to 18 disappear but what didn't disappear were the calls 19 for service for family violence. A mother who 20 didn't know how to handle a 16-year-old who was 21 threatening her, family violence in its traditional 22 form. We can, if we work together and focus on it, 23 make the intervention that can make a difference. 24 The second place, I think, that violence 25 comes from in its immediate cause is drugs and 9 1 alcohol. I think we focus so much on drugs but as 2 we do, we cannot and must not forget alcohol. The 3 Center for Disease Control shows that many of the 4 youth homicides that we have seen in these last ten 5 years are more often alcohol related than drug 6 related. And as we design programs, both treatment 7 and intervention and prevention programs, we must 8 focus on all these substances and how they affect 9 our children. 10 I used to get frustrated when I saw on an 11 offender charged with possession of a small amount 12 of drugs get probation, the probation officer had a 13 caseload of 100 at any one time, didn't know too 14 much about drug treatment and nothing really 15 happened. We designed the drug court that operates 16 on a care and sticker approach and says, look, you 17 can get prosecuted and you can get punished and you 18 can get really sent to prison if you're a second or 19 third time offender or you can work with us in 20 treatment. We'll work with you in job training and 21 placement, we'll get you off on the right foot. We 22 had a judge who was interested in the area who 23 focused on it, who supervised, who worked with us. 24 And it has had an impact based on some significant 25 evaluations. But we've got to increase and enhance 10 1 that effort. The crime bill authorized it, we've 2 got to make sure that those dollars continue to 3 come into communities where they can make a 4 difference and where they can help. 5 One area that I would suggest, that you 6 put the pieces of the community together and 7 reweave the fabric of community around children and 8 families at risk is to focus on the scourge of 9 methamphetamine. We have moved quickly to develop 10 with DEA and with local police across the country a 11 strategy aimed at this drug that it's violence 12 inciting and it's as dangerous as crack. Let us 13 get to it before it gets established in so many 14 communities across this nation. And if you have 15 any questions about it, I urge you to contact your 16 local police. If they have any questions urge them 17 to contact the Drug Enforcement Administration 18 nearest you so that we can join together to prevent 19 this to where it does not take root. 20 Finally, another point of violence comes 21 from something that breaks my heart. Our elderly 22 are living longer, they are more frail, they are 23 more dependent and yet they are oftentimes either 24 left by themselves or cared for by a child who is 25 trying to make ends meets. The problem of elderly 11 1 violence and violence against the elderly will 2 become a greater problem in this nation unless we 3 act now with experts to do whatever is necessary in 4 terms of preventing it. And I am convinced that we 5 can if we develop programs for the elderly. If we 6 give them the motivation to become more involved in 7 their community. If we say to them, yes, you can 8 make a difference. Even if you're 80 years old, 9 you can contribute. 10 And my favorite story of that is I went 11 to a community meeting in Miami once and an old man 12 raised his hand and said do you know how old I am 13 and what I do three mornings a week. And I said 14 no, sir. He said, I'm 84 years old and I volunteer 15 as a teacher's aid three days a week for three 16 hours each morning. And the young woman who was 17 seated next to him stood up and she said, I'm a 18 first grade teacher for whom he volunteers. And 19 the kids with learning disabilities can't wait for 20 their time with him because he has the patience of 21 Job and with my huge classroom I can't spend the 22 time with them that they need. And the kids who 23 are bright and eager and the best students can't 24 wait for their time with him because he challenges 25 them far beyond what I have time to challenge them 12 1 to do. Every one of us can make a difference if we 2 address the issue of transportation, if we address 3 the issue of support that can make our elderly able 4 to contribute for a long, long time. 5 Another area that violence comes from is 6 guns. And the proliferation of guns, particularly 7 the proliferation of guns that came from the crack 8 gangs and the violence associated with crack. 9 There are a number of programs working across the 10 nation to get guns out off the hands of kids, the 11 traffickers and gangs. Again, I would add as part 12 of the building block, if you look at how you 13 develop a comprehensive effort in your community, 14 what you can do with the alcohol --- Bureau of 15 Alcohol and Tobacco and Firearms, the U.S. 16 Attorneys, the local district attorneys, what can 17 you do in terms of gun prevention programs that 18 work? 19 Another place that violence comes from 20 immediately, as an immediate cause, is that 21 juvenile justice system that in too many places in 22 this country is overwhelmed, overcrowded and 23 absolutely done in in terms of trying to address 24 the issue. When you look at the caseloads in the 25 juvenile court in so many places in this nation, 13 1 when you look at the facilities that permit --- are 2 so crowded that they permit these children who have 3 behavior problems that require extensive 4 modification to be there a month or two and then go 5 back to the streets, you know it will never work. 6 All of us who are concerned about prevention have 7 got to continue to make a commitment to the 8 juvenile justice system that can truly serve our 9 children. 10 People talk about money, but you see the 11 12-year-old come into the system for the first 12 time. Non-violent first offender, nobody pays too 13 much attention to him because the system is 14 overwhelmed. He comes back the second time as a 15 13-year-old, he comes back as a 14-year-old. And 16 then people begin to think about it but by that 17 time he is so confirmed in his pattern of conduct 18 that it takes longer to undo it. If we had 19 sensible assessments up front, what they follow 20 through that enable that kid to get off on the 21 right foot early on, it could make a significant 22 difference. 23 But where does violence really come 24 from? Violence comes from the beginning. Violence 25 is a learned behavior. Violence is a product of 14 1 too many communities that have fallen away from 2 their children. Violence is a product, too often, 3 of a nation that has forgotten and neglected its 4 children. As a prosecutor in Miami, I could pick 5 up a presentence investigation of a 17-year-old who 6 I had had adjudicated as an armed robber. I could 7 see three or four points along the way in that 8 child's life where we could have intervened and 9 made a difference and gotten him off into a strong 10 and positive future, but we failed because we would 11 wait until it was too late. We would wait for 12 expensive prisons and detention facilities rather 13 than pay a few dollars up front. 14 I tried to look with the school system at 15 causation factors. And the clearest causation 16 factors were dropouts and delinquency. And we 17 started a dropout prevention program with the 18 school system. But you can't wait until middle 19 school where all the dropout prevention programs 20 seem to start. By that time the child has already 21 fallen a grade level or two behind, they're 22 beginning to act out in other ways to attract 23 attention to themselves. We have to start 24 earlier. 25 And so we started a neighborhood 15 1 intervention program focused around Headstart, but 2 that was 1985. And at that point the crack 3 epidemic hit in Miami. And the doctors took me to 4 our public hospitals to try to figure out what to 5 do about crack involved infants and their mothers. 6 And they taught me a very great deal. They taught 7 me that the first three years of life are the most 8 formative time in a person's life. Fifty (50) 9 percent of all learned human response is learned in 10 that first year of life. The child develops the 11 concept of a conscience and understands reward and 12 punishment. What good are all the prisons in the 13 world going to be 18 years from now if that child 14 doesn't understand what punishment means, if he 15 doesn't develop a conscience? What good are all 16 the great educational opportunities going to be 15 17 years from now if that child doesn't have the 18 foundation of learning solidly built in that first 19 year? 20 And so I came to the conclusion that if 21 we're really going to do something about violence 22 we have to take the building blocks of children's 23 lives and try to reinvigorate the family but 24 provide support outside of what the family can't or 25 doesn't do to make a difference. We have got to 16 1 make sure that we have strong parents who know how 2 to raise children. And parenting skills courses 3 are a darn good way to start. We teach so many 4 things in our public schools but we don't teach 5 them what bonding and nurturing mean. 6 When I looked at that crack nursery, the 7 neonatal unit at our hospital, children have not 8 been held or talked to except when changed or fed 9 and you could begin to see them just not 10 responding. That is one of the critical points. 11 If we are ever to really change the culture of 12 violence in this country, we've got to make sure 13 that our children are properly supported. You look 14 at parents who are struggling to make ends meet 15 because child support isn't being paid. We should 16 make it as difficult in this country or as easy in 17 this country to collect child support as it is to 18 collect income tax. 19 And what does that have to do with 20 violence? I collected child support in Miami and I 21 get the calls from the frantic parent at seven 22 o'clock on the Sunday night saying what are you 23 doing about getting my rent, I'm about to be out on 24 the streets, I can't raise my children right. It 25 can make a difference. 17 1 One of the moments I will always remember 2 is being with the President as we dedicated a new 3 church to replace a church that had been burned in 4 South Carolina. Suddenly, as I walked off the 5 dais, I heard a woman say, Janet, and I looked over 6 and I didn't know her. And she says, I'm from 7 Miami, I moved up here after Hurricane Andrew. You 8 always used to collect child support for me. She 9 said, I saw you and your mom in the Martin Luther 10 King parade. And she said, I almost rushed up and 11 hugged you and thanked you for the child support. 12 Can I still rush up and hug you? But the most 13 moving moment was when she turned and said, and 14 these are the children you got support for. And when you look 15 up at two young men who were towering above her, 16 then you really understand every piece makes a 17 difference. 18 We've got to make sure if our children 19 are going to live in a culture that does not 20 promote violence that they have a healthy life. 21 You look at the presentence investigations again, 22 problems, health problems that could have been 23 prevented. We've got to make sure that our 24 children and every child in America has preventive 25 medical care. Something is wrong with a nation 18 1 that says to a 70-year-old person you can have an 2 operation that extends your life expectancy by a 3 few years regardless of whether you can pay for it, 4 but says to the child of a working poor person, 5 sorry, you can't get preventive medical care. 6 How do you say we do it? Again, if we 7 use common sense. There are doctors in your 8 community, that if we can work out liability issues 9 and the like, want to volunteer their time but 10 there may be transportation problems. Let's link 11 up some transportation systems with the doctors who 12 want to volunteer their time. But let us think 13 about what's possible. Instead of saying, no, we 14 can't afford it, no, we can't do this, let us look 15 at what we have in our community and bring them 16 together as partners to solve this problem. I find 17 that doctors are more than willing to try to do 18 everything they can to address this issue. 19 Let us, at the same time, recognize if 20 the first three years are so important then the 21 concept of educare is so important. I don't call 22 it child care, I call it educare, solid 23 professional child care that can teach children --- 24 that start to teach children the difference between 25 right and wrong those first three years blend in 19 1 with the Headstart and prepare the child for our 2 public schools. That can, again, be done if we 3 look at how the pieces can work together. If we 4 involve the churches in our community and if we 5 extend our efforts in terms of training to develop 6 the best in educare possible, it can make a 7 difference. 8 One of the keys that seems to me in 9 violence prevention is supporting our schools in 10 every way that we can. I can remember the name of 11 every one of my teachers. They were profound 12 influences in my life. And, again, I'm struck with 13 the problem in the nation that pays its football 14 players in the six digit figures and pays the 15 school teachers what they pay them. 16 Most of the kids that I've seen in 17 trouble are not dumb kids, they're not stupid kids, 18 they're really probably very, very bright. They 19 sure can be creative and ingenius. And sometimes 20 they don't feel challenged because the teacher has 21 all the paperwork to do. She has a class of 30 or 22 35. She's got to teach them new skills that she's 23 probably just learning herself in terms of 24 commuters. We've got to give our schools the 25 resources to do the job to prepare our children for 20 1 this next century. But then you're going to find 2 some kids out of school and the police are going to 3 see the daytime burglary rate go up. And the 4 teachers are going to have problems teaching. Let 5 us develop more effective community truancy 6 prevention programs. If you have trouble like I 7 have, police say it's just not worth doing because 8 we pick up the kid, take them back to school, the 9 school calls home, momma doesn't come get them and 10 the school sends the child home on the bus and he's 11 right back out the next day. Let us develop a team 12 of social worker or public health nursing and 13 community police officers that can take that child 14 home, find out what is happening and intervene in a 15 positive voluntary way before that person gets too 16 far down the line. 17 I am so impressed with what you're doing 18 here on the conference program with discussions of 19 conflict resolution and dispute resolution and the 20 fact that you're emphasizing the need to evaluate 21 what's working and what's not working. But I am 22 convinced that there is a new force spreading 23 across this country. Lawyers are learning how to 24 negotiate better, teachers are learning how to 25 negotiate better, mediate children's problems. We 21 1 can do so much. If we can send a man to the moon 2 we ought to be able to teach people and teach kids 3 how to negotiate their problems without knives and 4 guns and fists. If we can teach them how to spell, 5 if we can teach them how to use computers, we ought 6 to be able to teach them that. And I think what 7 you're doing in this program is just so important. 8 But if we have the best schools and we 9 teach everything and we keep the kids in school and 10 we resolve the conflicts, we still have problems 11 because so much kids are walking out of their 12 schoolhouse onto the streets without supervision 13 until later in the evening. And if we do nothing 14 but make sure our children have appropriate 15 supervision in those afternoon and evening hours 16 where they are now alone, on weekends where parents 17 may be working, if we can develop mentoring 18 programs and constructive and positive programs 19 with our parks and recreation specialists, we can 20 make a difference. 21 Now, people say, again, it's a matter of 22 money. But I have seen so many examples to date of 23 police officers who leave their three o'clock shift 24 and go directly to the soccer field where they are 25 sponsoring a soccer team. I have seen parks and 22 1 recreation specialists develop special programs for 2 kids at risk. If we take our resources and use 3 them right we can make a difference. And we can 4 make a difference if we recognize what police 5 officers can do as community police officers. 6 It is wonderful to see an old police 7 officer, who I've known slightly, in the Miami 8 newspaper saying I'm used to arresting kids but I'm 9 really helping them now and I'm enjoying this a lot 10 more. It is wonderful to see two young men come to 11 Rochester, Massachusetts, to tell the president of 12 the United States what two community police 13 officers have done to get them off on the right 14 foot and serve as mentors to make a difference. 15 Community policing in a problem solving system 16 where they help the neighbors and the kids solve 17 the problems can make a difference. But we've got 18 to prepare our children for the world. We've got 19 to make sure they graduate with skills that can 20 enable them to earn a living wage. We've got to provide the 21 transition for them to the world of work, and we can do 22 that with the business community becoming a partner 23 with schools across this nation to provide adjunct 24 opportunities to learn what work is all about and 25 how to have the discipline necessary to do well in 23 1 work. 2 Philadelphia is doing some wonderful 3 things. Wonderful things are being done around 4 this nation. But what people ask me regularly is, 5 what works. You have at your table, I think, a 6 book we put together of one city that seems to be 7 addressing the problem of youth violence. It 8 doesn't include everything that's probably a foot 9 in Boston, there are other communities. And what I 10 would like to challenge you to do is let's exchange 11 information about what's working. As you here at 12 the conference identify programs that are working, 13 let's let the Office of Juvenile Justice and 14 Delinquency Prevention know. We're trying to 15 develop mentors with others to insure dissemination 16 of information about truancy prevention and about 17 meriting programs, about conflict resolution 18 programs. But let's start sharing the information 19 about what's working. And then as we share, let us 20 never ever give up. You are making a difference. 21 Children can have a future and we can do 22 it if we use our common sense, use the resources in 23 the community, believe the best of people and put 24 the pieces together so that child by child, family 25 by family, school by school, block by block, we can 24 1 take this nation back for our children and give 2 them a strong and healthy and positive future. 3 Thank you. 4 * * * * * * * * 5 SPEECH CONCLUDED AT 1:57 P.M. 6 * * * * * * * * 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25